Guy Sebastian Delivers An Early Present To Fans: The New Album Out On October 28
With his new single .Taller, Stronger, Better. debuting at #3 on the ARIA charts last week, news has just come in that Guy's third studio album has been brought forward several weeks due to demand and will now be released on October 28. That means you'll be able to wrap your ears around plenty of incredible new music in just over three weeks! Start counting down and get the complete lowdown on the album here...
He may have sold a staggering half a million records already, but Guy Sebastian is back with a third album, feeling much more confident, self assured and completely at ease with his place in the world and his sound. Indeed Guy's third album is the record he was born to make.
"I know exactly what I want to hear now," Guy says. "This album comes from a bunch of ideas I had at home and now I realize that's the way an album should be written," Guy says. "I don't think you should travel around the world to get songs, I think they should come from jamming. That's where the best ones have come from for me anyway."
Take for example 'Taller Stronger Better' - the first single, which debuted at #3 on the ARIA Top 50 Singles chart. Guy and his mates Gary Pinto and Susie Ahern were hanging out one night in Melbourne after reality TV show It Takes Two (where Guy mentored swimmer Sarah Ryan). Before long, the inspirational song, not so much a big ballad but a ginormous one, came to life.
"It's almost going back to the more gospel Angels Brought Me Here vibe. Gary, Susie and I put down a 120 track choir between the three of us," Guy reveals. "It's just our three voices but we sung in all these different voices, trying to emulate a choir. We wrote it one night, it got quite late, I remember there was a 3am Maccas run involved... but it all came together pretty quickly."
There's more than fast-food fuelling the record though - there's also a healthy dose of, yes, rock. 'Elevator Love' is the most rockin' moment Guy Sebastian has ever been involved with. And no, get your mind out of the gutter, the title isn't about what you're thinking it is.
"It's a metaphor," Guy explains. "From the title you think it's about making love, it's a metaphor about love that's so up and down, you never get it right but you like it that way. I've been in a relationship like that before... as soon as stuff levels out you wonder what's wrong."
Elsewhere the album delves into more soulful areas - 'Closer to the Sun' is a gorgeous almost hippy epic inspired by Lenny Kravitz and the Beatles.
"It's about coming from somewhere laidback like Adelaide to living in a rat race like Sydney and hoping some ship comes down to take you away. I was actually thinking about Lenny Kravitz and that video where he goes away in a spaceship."
Meanwhile there's even a love song to soul music with 'Taking Me Over'. It was inspired by a night in New York where Guy discovered soul clubs blasting out the music he grew up listening to - hence the lyrical shout outs to Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway.
"I went into one place in New York and was watching this incredible old school soul band. The bar girl was Australian who was working there while she was traveling. She'd seen me up the back, and asked the band to get me up on stage and sing. I had no idea she'd even seen me and then the next song they asked me up. I was this multi cultured dude, I wasn?t a black guy like them, I wasn't a white guy like the guys in the crowd, I had this fuzzy hair. But when I sang I was so inspired and I've never sung like that before, it was like I departed this earth and went to some soul land. It was an amazing experience, I wrote the song about that."
The album also contains a song written by Seal, 'Can't Stop a River', one of the few tracks Guy didn't pen.
"It's almost a male version of 'You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman'" Guy says. "It's really cool."
Another highlight, 'Cover On My Heart', was written about a mate Guy used to work with at a warehouse.
"That's one of my most favourite ballads I've ever written," Guy says. "It's about a guy I used to work with at a warehouse who was the sort of dude where life bit him in the butt. This guy was obsessed with this lunch truck girl, he hated his job, but she was the only reason he stayed at that job. I reckon she was into him, she gave him her number but he was too scared to do anything. One day she just stopped coming in. That drove him nuts, he was so depressed, he actually even wrote down one time what he'd say to her. So the chorus says 'I was going to tell you today, I even wrote the words I would say' so the song is all about him. I hope he doesn't take offence!"
In keeping it real, Guy Sebastian has made his most honest, and most natural, album to date. It's no wonder he's thrilled.
"I didn't have a lot of input on mixing or production or even writing on my first album," he says. 'Even on the second, I was still growing, it was all a bit new to me. But now I realize my only baby is the music. It's all I have to care about. When you listen to this album there's a real consistency to the sound, it's quite organic. There's not a lot of programming, it doesn't sound like an R&B record, it sounds like a pop/rock record sung by an R&B guy."
"I'm really happy with everything about this record. I'm really happy with how my voice is sounding. I've been involved with everything, right down to the artwork. I know exactly what I want now. I feel a real ownership of this record."
Guy Sebastian's new album will be in stores on October 28!
