I brought it home with a wild blues run (I hope Aretha would have been proud), and there was big, appreciative applause, plus another shrill scream from those girls, so I gave it the classic Michael Jordan fist pump. The older contestants had been taking voice lessons for years and they were really good, but – wow! Girls were screaming for me.
I made it all the way to the last round of the competition, even though I was one of the youngest contestants and the other finalists were the oldest. The night of the final, after everyone had performed, one of the judges brought the three finalists up on stage. First a beautiful blonde who was tall and had all kinds of vocal training and sang great. Then a beautiful brunette who was even taller and more trained and sang even better. And then me. The twelve-year-old kid in baggy pants. But being surrounded by beautiful girls, win or lose, I wasn’t complaining. I was feeling really good about how it went, but not cocky at all. I didn’t assume I’d win, but I really, really, really wanted to. I hooked my thumbs in my pockets, trying to look like “Hey, it’s cool. Whatever.” But inside I was praying for that judge to say my name.
“But being surrounded by beautiful girls, win or lose, I wasn’t complaining”
“I want to tell you that you’re all winners,” she said.
Yeah. Awesome. Please, say my name now.
“It takes so much to get up on stage and showcase a talent like that. Music is important, so keep singing no matter what.”
Okay. Got it. Please, say my name. Please, say my name. Please, say my—
“Our Stratford Star winner this year is...”
She said someone else’s name.
The crowd cheered. A little chunk of my heart fell out and rolled under the piano.
I came in third out of, um... how many was it again? Let me see, I believe it was... three. The only person they announced at the time was the winner, and for a long time I was under the impression I’d come in second, which was slightly less humiliating. But no.
“The guys on the tour say I am a perfectionist”
After my first record blew up, somebody from the competition told a reporter that I was actually third. She was quoted as saying, “He was definitely up for the challenge, and he had the charisma. He just didn’t have the experience. We thought, give him a couple years with voice training.” Obviously, I’m pretty happy with the way things eventually worked out, but I was seriously crushed at the time. I just couldn’t understand it. I’d felt so totally high on it – had this awesome experience – and then I lost? I won’t even pretend I didn’t care. I wanted to win. I mean, if you don’t care about winning the competition, why show up? I know that sounds harsh but I just love competition so much that I’m sometimes very hard on myself The guys on the tour say I’m a perfectionist. But I was old enough to know that you have to be prepared to be gracious, win or lose. Even at the time, I clapped. I smiled. I shook the winner’s hand. I thanked the judges. Mom and Grandpa and Grandma were proud of the way I conducted myself. That’s something you learn playing sports. You want to win. You play your heart out. If it goes your way – joy! Winning feels great. If you lose, that sucks, and you have every right to feel bad, but you have to suck it up, be gracious, and go down the line, slapping hands with the other team, saying, “Good game, good game, good game...”
So shout out to those two girls who beat me in Stratford Star. Good game, ladies!
While we were working up this touring show, Dan Kanter said, “I see a song from an aerial view. The intro, the verse, the chorus. And then I look at a show from the aerial view. The set list, the climax of a guitar solo. Writing a set list is an art. Before I go to concerts, I never look online. I want to go in and everything is a surprise. It’s too bad that, with YouTube, the fans are going to know so much in advance. They’re still going to freak out and think it’s great, but I wish it was a full reveal.”
On stage, we don’t want any surprises. We want everything to play out perfect, just the way we planned. In life, you get the full reveal. It’s all a surprise. And that makes it a lot more interesting, even though some of the surprises suck. In the Bible it says “everything works together for good” if you love God, but there are times when it does not feel that way at all. Times when you’re like, “Yo, God! This is messed up. Could you pay some attention down here?” Maybe faith is the ability to chill and trust that somebody up there got the set list right. Maybe when you’re cool with whatever comes your way, the reveal eventually happens, and even the bad moments can turn around to bless you.
Mom and Grandpa and Grandma took me to Scoopers Ice Cream after I lost the Stratford Star competition.
Grandpa told me, “You can lose without feeling like a loser. If you take the experience and learn from it, you’re still coming out ahead of where you were before.”
“We’re so proud of you,” said Grandma. “And remember, you did it for fun, and it was fun, right? You had fun, didn’t you?”
“Yeah...” I had to admit it. I had a ton of fun. It was actually kind of an incredibly fun experience, and I could definitely see myself doing that again. Or doing some other competition. Maybe even American Idol someday. In a thousand years. When I’d have a driver’s license. And probably a beard like Nathan, that Lion King dude...” Plus, you’re invited to sing for the autism benefit,” said Mom. “Are you excited about that?”
“Yeah. Kind of. I will be when it gets closer to the time to do it,” I said, trying not to sound too destroyed.
Mom gave me a good hug. “You did great, Justin. I wish everyone could have been there – the whole family and all our friends at church. But I got some great videos. I’m going to put them up on YouTube so everyone can all see how amazing you did.”
CHAPTER 4
YouTube: MY FIRST MILLION
Underneath the stage, it’s like a whole city of steel beams, cables, equipment, rolling storage units and canvas curtains. Part of the stage floor drops down and elevators rise up with me onboard for a dramatic entrance, and coming down from the sides are ramps the dance crew and I use to exit. They lead to a narrow alley that’s curtained off and lit with flood lamps. All the costume changes are hanging on racks, carefully arranged in order of who belongs to which pair of pants and when in the show everything is needed.
After a lunch break and some Ping-Pong with the crew we charge into a second run-through of the show. The morning run-through was for working out the last few bugs in the technical stuff. No screw-ups this time. We’re cruising through the whole thing without stopping.
Ryan Good, my stylist and road dog, keeps everything rocking right along. When I come off stage, he helps me do a quick change into the next get-up. It’s pretty hectic – there’s me and the whole dance crew and we’re all working pretty hard. When we strip off our sweaty shirts and shoes, it smells like that sweaty old guy from the YMCA. You guys know what I’m talking about.
In addition to those costume changes, we have to work out the timing between one song and the next, and how the talking will fit with the video effects, which means I have to say something, but it changes from one show to the next. So, during the run-through, I’m just supposed to say whatever comes into my head, and usually what comes into my head is a bunch of goofing off and teasing people.
“How y’all doing out there tonight? Oh, Ryan, you are looking good today. Was it Garnier Fructis you used last night?”
Somewhere in the dark arena, a voice yells, “Video rolling for forty-five... forty...”
“Man you’ve got some golden locks. AW C’MON!”
There’s laughter from underneath the stage and heckling from roadies and catering people wandering around. I suppose I could practice what I’m actually going to say, but I don’t want it to come out sounding phony. I’d rather just come out and look at the real faces of the real people and talk to them. As carefully as we nail down everything else, that connection has to stay unrehearsed and in the moment. I don’t know who’s going to be out there or what’s going to happ
en, but I know it has to be personal, and it doesn’t scare me to leave it wide open.
That’s another question I get asked all the time: “Do you get nervous?”
The truth is: I don’t. I don’t mean for that to come off as cocky. I just don’t see what’s to be afraid of. It’s not that I never make mistakes. Are you kidding? Mistakes happen all the time. But that’s life. You pick it up and keep going. My spleen isn’t going to explode if I play the wrong guitar chord or fluff the occasional song lyric. I’m kind of a perfectionist. I work hard to get it right, but part of that is being able to roll with the unexpected. I know someone who was busking in the park and a bird pooped on her head in the middle of “Amazing Grace.” That’s showbiz.
For those of you who don’t know what busking is, that’s when you play music for donations on the street, in a park, on the subway, or, in my case, on the front steps of the Avon Theatre...
SINGING ON THE SIDEWALK
I wanted to go golfing with my friends one day, but I didn’t have any money. After the Stratford Star competition, I was excited about the idea of playing music for people, so I decided to give busking a shot. During tourist season, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival was going on, and people came from far and wide to see those plays. Buses would pull up in front of the theatre, and about a hundred people would get out and mill around before they went off to shop or check out the local cafés and art galleries.
So this was a perfect place. Lots of pedestrians. And shade, if I went there at the right time of day. I knew all the words to a lot of songs and I didn’t need backup tracks. I could accompany myself on the guitar. Mom wasn’t sure what people were going to be like, so she didn’t want me sitting there by myself. I tried to tell her it would be fine and I’d be home by dark, but she insisted on having Grandpa sit in his car across the street.
The first time I parked myself on the steps, I set my open guitar case in front of me, hoping people would be nice and I’d come up with twenty bucks or so. After just a couple hours, I had almost $200. I felt like I’d discovered a gold mine. When I got home and shared this discovery with Mom, she was completely blown away and immediately started talking about responsibility and a college account and that sort of thing. I had another idea.
“Mom, we could go to Disney World.”
She thought about the math for a minute and said, “We seriously could. At this rate, even if you put a good share into savings, you’d have enough for plane tickets by the end of summer.”
It was a plan. Mom and I had never gone anywhere on vacation except up to the rod-and-gun club cabin at Star Lake with Grandpa and Grandma. Disney World had always seemed about as possible as winning the lottery. The realization that I could make it happen just by playing music – doing something I’d been doing for years just for fun – was pretty cool. Mom was satisfied the people were going to be nice, but now she was worried about my sitting there with all that cash, so she and Grandpa took turns keeping an eye on me from across the street.
Busking was a blast. People were very kind and appreciative. Almost everybody threw me at least a buck or two and had something nice to say. At the end of one day, there was a note in my guitar case. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but it was something to the effect of “You’re cute! Call me! Love, Tiffany.” And a phone number.
Chaz and Ryan were so like, “Whuuuut? No way!”
“Disney World had always seemed about as possible as winning the lottery”
Way.
It’s hard to imagine improving on the situation, but this was getting ridiculously awesome. Disney World... plus girls. Busking was a pretty sweet gig!
The acoustics were great at that location, and on clear, calm days people told me they could hear me all the way down the street. Buses came and went, bringing all sorts of people. Ladies with big hats and giant bags, Japanese schoolgirls in plaid uniforms, Boy Scout troops and baseball teams, elderly couples out for a stroll. Tour groups would get dropped off on the corner so they could shop for souvenirs, and some of them would still be standing there when the bus came back.
Thanks to the musical influences of Mom and Dad, I had a nice repertoire that included something for everybody. Anything from R&B and pop standards to country and Christian music, and even a little heavy metal. Which isn’t very heavy when it’s just a kid and his guitar, I guess, but – you know. Mini metal. It works.
“I was twelve... I wanted to start dating”
One song that consistently wrecked people to tears and brought in a lot of donations was “Sarah Beth,” a Rascal Flatts song about a girl with cancer. Look up that video on YouTube and try to watch it without getting choked up. I dare you. “Sarah Beth” wrecks everybody. I don’t care if you’re one of those gnarly, bearded Bering Strait crab fishermen on Deadliest Catch. You’re crying by the end of that song.
People who ran the shops close to the theater loved me because customers lingered longer when I was playing. If it was up to them, I’d have been out there every day from open to close of business, but it was summertime and I was twelve. I wanted to hang out with my friends. And I wanted to start dating. I was feeling pretty flush in the financial department, more than ready to step up, be a gentleman, show a lady a good time.
VIRAL VIDEO
My first date has been sort of mythologized as “Bieber’s Dating Disaster.” I took her to King’s, a buffet restaurant. Yes, I wore a white shirt. Yes, I got spaghetti. No, this was not the brightest idea. But it wasn’t a big trauma, though. This girl was a friend, and she’s pretty cool. We laughed about it and, all things considered, while it wasn’t one of my smoothest dating experiences, it gave us both a funny story to tell and it was a good starter date for me. I was a lot more nervous about that date than I ever was about performing on stage, but, once it was over with, I was comfortable with the idea of going out with other girls and just having fun. Seriously, if the worst thing that ever happened to a person on a date was getting a stain on your shirt... quit cryin’. That’s nothing.
A lot of the tourists out in front of the Stratford Theatre were armed with video cameras, not surprisingly, and, pretty soon, a few videos of me busking showed up on YouTube. When I was searching around for them, I happened to click on one of Mom’s videos from the Stratford Star.
“Geez, Mom, how many times did you and Grandma look at this video?” I said. “There’s like... whoa...”
The counter showed dozens of comments:
He’s so cute!
OMG I love Justin
Great Job! Adorable Kid!
Shut up, dork
You shut up! Don’t mind the haterz, Justin.
UR SEXY!
Crazy. The busking videos had racked up hundreds of hits as well, with a similar supply of comments. As summer went on, hundreds turned to thousands. Mom started getting weird calls from people we didn’t know.
“Does Justin have an agent?”
“I’d like to talk to you about being Justin’s manager.”
We didn’t get all excited about this, because Mom assumed that these people were con men – or worse. She got an email from a producer for the TV show Maury (which used to be called The Maury Povich Show), but I didn’t even know what his show was about.
“I think they have all kinds of crackpots on that show,” Grandma said. “Or they have people on and do paternity tests to determine who’s a baby’s father.”
Yikes! We definitely weren’t interested in that one.
THE PHONE CALL OF A LIFETIME
One day, she got a call from the school district. A guy named Scooter Braun had called them looking for this kid from Stratford.
“I’m very skeptical of anyone in the music industry,” said Mom. “I wish they’d leave him alone.”
They gave her Scooter’s phone number, but she didn’t call him back. So Scooter began calling around to people in the area, trying to find us. He was so persistent that my mom agreed to call him back from a blocked number to hear him ou
t.
“Please, listen to me for just a minute, Pattie,” Scooter said. “And then, if you don’t want to hear from me again, you won’t have to. I just want to say I see something really special in your son. And I see a lot of myself in him, except when I was that age I had no talent. I think I can help him.”
The fact that Mom didn’t immediately hang up got me thinking. Maybe this is for real. Maybe this is how it starts. I mean, when you’re singing in the shower, pretending to be a rock star, you’re not actually thinking about how that happens. Scooter definitely had me interested, but what he was talking about sounded like the plot of a movie, not something that happens to a real guy in real life. But Scooter’s own life kind of sounded like a movie.
“I’m a 25-year-old guy who used to be one of the most successful party promoters in the country. I decided one day I was never going to throw another party. I just didn’t want to be 40 years old saying ‘Daddy needs to go to the nightclub.’ That’s not the life for me. I wanted to be in the music business, be a part of creating something. I went on to become a marketing VP at a record label called So So Def. And then left that job to start my own record label and manage artists. I find new talent and help them build a career.”
“So whose career are you building now?” Mom asked, ready to Google it and call him out if he tried to BS her.
“I just signed a rapper named Asher Roth. He’s just getting started, but we’ve got big plans and I’m excited about his opportunities. I guess, Pattie, the biggest thing you’ve got to know about me, is that I want to make sure your son never has any ‘what ifs?’”
Scooter ended up winning some points with her over the course of a long conversation. He gave her a long list of impressive references and they just ended up talking about family and morals for about two hours. He seemed like a good guy. Mom said she’d think about it, but she warned me not to get my hopes up.