Guy Theodore Sebastian. Yep people, Guy's middle name is Theodore, and he's Australia's next big superstar. His original goal on Australian Idol was to make it the top 40 and he never thought he'd win it! He came pretty close to being voted off to, that night he and Paulini were the bottom two, the margin between them was only 2%! But let's start from the beginning....

Guy was born in Klang, Malaysia on October 26th, 1981. When he was just six years old he moved with his family to Melbourne, Australia when his dad was sent here for work. He's as a geologist for oil and gas. When he was 10 his family moved to Adelaide, which is where they currently live.

Guy's family includes his mum Nellie (who is of English and Portuguese descent) and works as a beauty therapist, his dad Ivan (who is of Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent) and as I said is a geologist for oil and gas, his older brother Oliver, 25 and his two younger brothers, Christopher, 15 and Jeremy, the one with the mini afro, 13.

Once he'd graduated from high school he started studying medical radiation at uni, but after 2 years it got to the stage where he couldn't cope with the dying and found himself hating it. So he announced to his parents that he was quitting and instead began giving music lessons at the local high school and began working as a recording engineer as well. He also enrolled in a one year Music Technology course at Uni Adelaide's prestigious Elder School of Music (which he has post-phoned due to his success with Australian Idol).

Guy has always been heavily involved in church, and currently he is an active member of Adelaide's popular Paradise Community Church. He has always been very open about the role that God plays in his life. He says that being involved in the church has helped his nerves a lot cos of the fact that he has performed in front of around 2,000 people on a weekly basis for the last six or seven years! He also said in a newspaper article that something else that he believes has made him stronger, is his decision not to have sex before he is married.

Of church Guy says "It's basically a really inspirational thing. We've done a lot of mission work. It's an awesome thing to be proud of." Guy believes that his amazing parents and Christianity have had a major impact in his development. "I think it has taught me to be very strong in the face of stuff, and I haven't lapped up what people would usually think is the benefits of being in the position I am in," Guy says.

But although Guy is very religious, he doesn't shove it in other people's faces. He doesn't think of other people badly just because they don't believe what he believes, he instead says people should stick with what they believe in, and not be swayed by other people's opinions.

Guy's afro has only been around a couple of years. Before that he had a short cut, and he'd even shaved his head! But then one day he just decided not to cut it and his hair just kept growing bigger and bigger and is now his trademark icon! One problem is that it's high maintenance hair (which only Guy does, no one else touches his hair!)! One of Guy's comments on his afro has been that if you see him with beanie on it just means that he couldn't be stuffed doing his hair!

Guy loves to write songs and has estimated that he has completed 30 songs, and has around 150 in various stages of completion. “I make up tunes in the shower, sitting in the car and always carry around a Dictaphone (it’s built into his mobile phone) so if a tune comes into my head I can record it into the voicemail on my phone – that way I don’t forget it.”

When Guy was a kid he played the violin, but it was only to satisfy his parents' urge for him to conquer a musical instrument. In the end he only ended up learning one song, but it was this song that was repeatedly played at family functions for about 3 years! After he gave that up he learnt to (and is still able to) play the guitar, drums and piano/keyboard.

If Guy starts to get nervous before he performs, he shuts his eyes and goes to his personal “Grooveland”. This is his own personal way of focusing and it stops him from stressing. He says he’s not that confident at all and he actually gets nervous fairly easily, but he can cover up it like an expert. He used to get SO nervous that his bottom lip used to vibrate and quiver so much that it wouldn’t stop shaking and he wasn't able to sing!

Guy is a major cricket head and during the summer he tries to play as much as he can. Recently during his stay at London he was given the opportunity to play on the Lord's cricket ground in London, which he was very pleased about! He has also recently started playing golf and loves to “thrash that little white ball up and down the fairway, but sadly, it never goes near the green.”

The only passion he has that is bigger than music, is his one for his motorbike, a Yamaha 250. He loves the freedom that he gets from riding it, and explains that it's his escape from "teaching, singing, music, just everything I do. It's the ultimate relaxation"

The response that Guy had to his first single was massive, and re wrote the history books! 'Angels Brought Me Here' went straight to the top of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) national singles chart and was triple platinum when released, with over 210,000 copies being shipped to record stores around Australia. After being in stores for just one week the number of copies sold (128,000 according to ARIAnet data) made Guy’s single the fastest selling Australian single in ARIAnet Chart history and the second highest first week singles sales ever being second only to Elton John’s Princess Diana tribute Candle in The Wind. It is also the highest first week singles sales for a debut artist in Australia.

His debut album, 'Just As I Am' (which is wicked if I say so myself!), was released in Australia on Dec 8 and set even more records. It stormed to the top of the charts (as predicted) and sold 163,000 copies in the first week. The album was recorded in five-and-a-half days (a record!) and has three songs on it that were co-written by Guy, 'All I Need Is You, 'Something Don't Feel Right' and 'i 4 u' (which he spent 83 HOURS on, straight, with NO sleep! Amazing!) along with his no. 1 single and he also made studio versions of two of his favourite songs from Australian Idol, Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World (which he sung on World Idol, more below) and Prince’s 'When Doves Cry'. “I wanted to give the people who believed in me something that they are proud of,” he said of his album in his biography.

Now, World Idol. World Idol is a competition between 11 winners from various countries. The contestants are Kelly Clarkson (USA), Will Young (UK), Alexander Klaws (Germany), Diana Karazon (El Arab), Heinz Winckler (South Africa), Ryan Malcom (Canada), Kurt Nilsen (Norway), Peter Evrard (Belgium) Jamai Loman (Holland), Alicja 'Alex' Janosz (Poland) and of course, our very own Guy Sebastian. Below is a photo of them together.

They all sang off on the 26th of December, and then we had to wait until JANUARY 2nd for the results show! Although it looked like Guy had a good chance of winning with him singing his funky urban rendition of Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World, Kurt Nilsen of Norway won the title with Guy coming seventh. Guy described the experience as "amazing, but I nearly died of hypothermia in London -- it was so cold!" Thank goodness he didn't!

Another life-long dream of Guy's that has been recently fulfilled is to sing at Channel Nine's Christmas Carols, in Sidney Bowl. He performed here on December 24th of 2003 singing two songs "Little Town Of Bethlehem" and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" after just arriving in from London.

Not long ago he signed onto Pepsi and now we can see Guy's face all over the country in advertisements for Pepsi! I reckon that is definitely a plus!

He also performed at the 2004 Scout Jamboree held at Woodhouse in Adelaide, performing five songs including his second single All I Need Is You.

The next project Guy was involved is was the Australian Idol tour which started in late January and ended in early February. The 12 finalists plus Courtney Act were all involved in the tour which performed in most of Australia's capital cities. To see what songs Guy sang check out the 'Songs Guy Sang On Australian Idol' link.

Some of you may have noticed during the tour that Guy has recently pierced his ear! It's a little silver stud in his left ear which looks awesome! He has also shaved part of his left eyebrow off, but from what I've heard he is growing that back!

Guy's second single, 'All I Need Is You', which is a personal fav of mine!, came out on February 23rd. The track listing includes 'All I Need Is You', 2 remixes and 'Climb Every Mountain' which Guy sang during the 60's night on Australian Idol. The single has done pretty good so far, the video clip is AWESOME and either is or was number one and according to the ARIA charts 'All I Need Is You' is currently in NUMBER ONE!!  

He presented an award at the Asia MTV Awards and also took a trip to New Zealand and did a few signings, a couple of performances and judged on New Zealand Idol which unfortunately it's not broadcast over here but I have a couple of news articles on his trip on the news article page.

Guy has also said that he will be doing a song writing tour/trip overseas sometime this year and then later this year I've heard he could be doing his own personal tour!! And I think he plans to release his second album (which he says is going to be purely his own stuff) this year as well!! He's going to be one busy boy!!

It has also been said recently that Guy has got back together with his ex-girlfriend and very good friend, Julie 'Jules' Egan. He went out with her for three years but they broke up before Guy went for Australian Idol and remained friends. And although we're slightly disappointed that Guy's not single, we're glad they're back together....hope it works out for him!!

What Guy believes his most valuable lesson is 'To touch people all you need to do is give yourself through the music' which is something that this nation wide phenomenal talent has done very well!

Guy's Fast Facts