Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Stephen Taylor and Sandra Cleary
He's young, good looking, wealthy and he tells a great joke... but, above all, Michael Buble can sing.
Oh, how he can sing.
This Canadian crooner is now the hottest ticket in town - a star who's made jazz and swing hip again.
So much so, Buble is being compared to the greats like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
It's taken a while - and there have been many doubters, many lean years along the way. But, 22 million albums later, his perseverance has paid off... in spades.
Buble invited Tara Brown to his hometown, Vancouver, to join in the fun of his remarkable success.
Story contacts:
Michael Buble’s latest CD titled Crazy Love is out now
- produced by Warner Music.
Full transcript:
STORY -
TARA BROWN: The first thing you need to know about Michael Buble is he likes skating almost as much as he likes singing - so much so he even has his own hockey team, the Vancouver Giants.
MICHAEL BUBLE: It fits. Why don't you just shut up and get on the ice?
TARA BROWN: The second thing you need to know - he doesn't take himself or anyone else too seriously.
MICHAEL BUBLE: OK, now what you're going to do...
TARA BROWN: I'm going to hit you?
MICHAEL BUBLE: ..is you're going to take my sweater, OK?
TARA BROWN: Right.
MICHAEL BUBLE: And then you pull this over the head - pull it over the head like that, and then you keep punching me.
TARA BROWN: Right.
MICHAEL BUBLE: Oh God, oh Jesus! Your poor husband! Your poor husband! You're a brute, you're a bully.
TARA BROWN: Yay!
TARA BROWN: Big kid...
MICHAEL BUBLE: One, two, three, four!
TARA BROWN: ..to big band. This is the Michael Buble we're more accustomed to... ..the suave performer with the smooth voice who looks like he's stepped straight out of the ever cool 1960s Rat Pack.
TARA BROWN: Do you think you're hip?
MICHAEL BUBLE: Um, yeah - in a nerdy way, yeah. I think it's really hip to be nerdy and, um, I have a friend who always says "cool is as cool does". So, yeah, I think I'm cool.
TARA BROWN: Now, I don't want to take you around in circles - The nerdy Michael's in the room.
MICHAEL BUBLE: Yes, he is.
TARA BROWN: But there's nothing nerdy about this - the latest Michael Buble album, 'Crazy Love'.
TARA BROWN: When did you realise you were a good singer and when did those around you work out that you might have a bit of talent here?
MICHAEL BUBLE: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'm 33 years old and some days I think I'm a great singer and other days I think I'm a total sham, you know.
TARA BROWN: I guess I'm trying to get back to your very beginnings and when - at what point did you go, "I'm a kid, I like music - that's pretty natural."
MICHAEL BUBLE: You want the truth or do you want a good story?
TARA BROWN: No, the truth - let's go for the truth.
MICHAEL BUBLE: OK, the truth is I wanted to get laid.
TARA BROWN: What? At 12, 13?
MICHAEL BUBLE: Oh abso-fricking-lutely. Absolutely! What else is there to think about at 12 or 13? Yeah, I just wanted to get laid, that's really the truth.
TARA BROWN: Did it work? Did you get laid?
MICHAEL BUBLE: It worked, yeah. I did get laid. Thank you for asking.
TARA BROWN: You raised it.
TARA BROWN: Adolescent urges aside, the story of how Michael Buble found success is one of old-fashioned hard slog and stubborn perseverance. He grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver. His dad was a fisherman, his mum a housewife, but it was his grandfather, Mitch, who really nurtured the young Michael's singing career.
MICHAEL BUBLE: I actually was actively going out and, you know, finding work and going to nightclubs and my grandfather was taking me around and sneaking me into clubs. He was a plumber and he was giving free toilets to people who would - I'm not even kidding!
TARA BROWN: For 10 years he toiled away in Vancouver's nightclubs - many of them strip joints - and he was singing for people who clearly weren't there to see him.
TARA BROWN: How did you get noticed or heard in a strip club?
MICHAEL BUBLE: With humour. I think the simple answer - with humour. Just as simple as I'd be in a strip bar and I'd, you know, come onto the microphone and I would say, "OK, guys, look at how excited you are to see me! "You don't want the girls to come by, you want me."
TARA BROWN: Michael Buble's next challenge was a record deal. It took him a few goes, but he somehow convinced the powerful boss of Warner Bros to give an unknown jazz singer a go.
MICHAEL BUBLE: And I sat down with Mr Whalley, the president, Tom Whalley, who was very cold. And he said, "Well, Mr Buble, why would I sign you? "I already have Sinatra." He said, "We have all the Sinatra work." And I said, "With all due respect, Mr Whalley, Sinatra's dead." And I said, "Don't bury the music with him." I said, "I'll work harder for you "than anybody who's ever worked and I'll make this happen."
TARA BROWN: Beautiful Vancouver.
MICHAEL BUBLE: It's beautiful, isn't it? Really.
TARA BROWN: As the cliche goes - the rest is history. In just six years, Michael Buble has become a star all over the world, although he still shines brightest in Vancouver.
MICHAEL BUBLE: A lot of people just taking pictures. Sometimes in Vancouver I feel a bit like a farm animal and you say, "Don't feed the Buble, "because if you feed him, he won't be able to feed himself."
TARA BROWN: Not that he'd ever complain. These are the people who were there at the start, when he was unknown and desperate. Now, I've got to ask, where does the voice come from?
MICHAEL BUBLE: My dad - he has a nice tone of voice, and he has a great memory but, for songs, it's unbelievably terrible. Basically, he would pick a song and he would go, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie... "When the moon hits your eye...", and he would just, like, repeat the one line a thousand times and I'd be like, "Get it, Dad - learn the damn song!"
TARA BROWN: Michael Buble is a very approachable celebrity, generous with his time and candid with his thoughts, but there is one thing he's coy about - any talk of a Mrs Buble-to-be.
MICHAEL BUBLE: I promised myself that I would keep some things for myself, you know. I would speak about most anything else, but it's hard enough to have your own private life, to have your own personal life.
TARA BROWN: He learnt the hard way. The break-up of his high-profile relationship with British actor Emily Blunt hurt him in many ways. There is a new woman in his life - he won't say who - but it does sound serious.
MICHAEL BUBLE: I'd like to be a husband and have kids and, I'm guessing, from seeing my family and my parents and my sisters that that will be my greatest success story.
TARA BROWN: Is that on the cards any day soon?
MICHAEL BUBLE: I don't know. I don't know, but I definitely think about it more and more. I think more and more about my mortality as I get older. as my body starts to fall apart.
TARA BROWN: Oh, c'mon!
MICHAEL BUBLE: I can't stay up late and party and things, 'cause I, you know, I'm hurting the next morning and I've got a hip that feels like it's out of place a little bit, and I think I'm losing my hair. Are these jowls?
TARA BROWN: As old as 33-year-old Michael Buble feels, his critics dismiss him as being wet behind the ears. He's been written off as a baby Sinatra, a copycat, who has a nice voice but little else.
TARA BROWN: Do the criticisms hurt?
MICHAEL BUBLE: Yes. Yeah. I was in Australia when one of your journalists - he was talking about football - and he said, "This player should be thrown in the dump with Michael Buble "and all of his CDs." He said something like this. And I called the man and I said to him, "What's your problem?" He said, "Nothing."
TARA BROWN: You wanted to take him on?
MICHAEL BUBLE: I wanted to kick his f*****g teeth in, yes, absolutely. And, later that week, I was with Delta Goodrem and she said, "Don't worry about him." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" I said I'd told him I'd kick his arse. And she said, "You shouldn't have done that," and I said, "Why?" and she said, "Because he's, like, a 6'6" Maori guy!" And then I thought, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" I could see him meeting me and just going, "Pfttt - look what I stepped in, Michael Buble."
TARA BROWN: Buble is best known for singing the standards, but he's most proud of the songs he writes. 'Home' is Michael's biggest original hit, so far. It's about longing and love and is guaranteed to make women go 'Aahhhh'. But don't stereotype him because of it.
MICHAEL BUBLE: I like Julio Iglesias - he's got a beautiful voice and all that stuff - but I don't want to have a billboard of me, looking pretty, saying to all the girls, "I love you." I just don't want that. It just makes me cringe. I'm a guy. I'm a guy's guy and I like football and porno and books about war. And, you know, if a woman throws her underwear, I won't - I don't deal with it very well. I'll grab the underwear and I'll say, you know, "Take the underwear back!" Do you understand what I mean?
TARA BROWN: Mmm.
MICHAEL BUBLE: I don't want to go and see a guy's show who thinks that he's all that and is singing to the girls and he's 'Mr Sexy Man' because it's just not cool for me. I'd much rather see a guy who can take the piss out of himself. Well, also, I think women are a bit smarter than that, aren't they?
MICHAEL BUBLE: I think so too - absolutely, yeah.
TARA BROWN: You won't find 'Mr Sexy Man' out here, either, but we can introduce Mr Business Man. If you're in the market for one, how much does a golf course cost in Canada?
MICHAEL BUBLE: Oh, lots and lots.
TARA BROWN: 12 months ago, Michael bought this prime piece of Vancouver real estate and plans to upgrade the golf club and build several hundred condos. Let's see if you can actually hit a golf ball.
MICHAEL BUBLE: That, I cannot do.
TARA BROWN: Come on, you can, come on!
MICHAEL BUBLE: I'm terrible. I'm terrible, you'll see. I hit like a hockey player.
TARA BROWN: Watching him play, it's clear he's had more hits on the charts than out on the course, but who cares? The comforting thought is he owns this place and he can do whatever he pleases. Straight in the drink!
TARA BROWN: Did you ever think it was going to be like this?
MICHAEL BUBLE: No. I hoped it would. I was probably the only one that probably had this stupid thought that it could be like this.
TARA BROWN: Good on you for thinking that.
MICHAEL BUBLE: Even my grandpa - I said to my grandpa, "So, Grandpa, did you ever think it would be like this?" And he says, "No, I thought you'd be the opening act for somebody in Las Vegas." And I kind of just looked at him and went, like, "Thanks a lot, Grandpa."
TARA BROWN: There have been many last laughs in Michael Buble's brilliant career and he's loved having all of them. But one stands out above the others - proving to Warner Brothers he was an artist worth signing.
MICHAEL BUBLE: They have someone at the company who's supposed to look at your career, basically, and they had decided that in the life of my career their 'guesstimation' was that I would sell from 50,000 to 100,000 records, and I sold 22 million. It's pretty good.
TARA BROWN: Oh, it's alright.
MICHAEL BUBLE: It's alright, yeah.
