'The Klang Connection'

Adly Syairi Ramly - E.Media - 27th February, 2004

IT was a day before the third MTV Asia Awards. Singapore was again flocked by journalists and music enthusiasts from all over the region. Their main destination, the Fullerton Hotel (where 90 per cent of the celebrities stayed).

On the other side of the island, well, on the sixth floor of the Four Seasons Hotel, a 22-year-old up and coming pop soul singer was giving the Asian Press his first ever interview.

Arriving from Australia the night before, he looked exhausted fielding the same questions by different journalists since morning.

Sporting an Afro hairdo, faded denim pants and T-shirt with patches of denim cut-outs, he could easily be mistaken for a drummer or bassist of a rock band.

Well, he,'s not.

He's Guy Sebastian, the inaugural winner of Australian Pop Idol – the guy whose debut single, Angel Brought Me Here, went on to become the highest selling single in Australian pop music history.

And that's not all. This was the same little boy who went to Radiant Life Kindergarten in Klang, Selangor in 1986.

A guy from Klang who is an Australian Idol, who has the highest-selling single in Australian pop music history? Ignore the weird combination, as Guy Sebastian is not your typical stereotype male pop singer.

Yes, born in 1981 in Klang, Sebastian is the second child of Ivan Sebastian, a geologist of Sri Lankan and Portuguese descent and Nellie Sebastian, a beauty therapist of English and Portuguese descent.

At the age of seven, his family migrated to Australia where he started to develop his passion for music by singing in church. He was part of a youth gospel band called the Planet Shakers who performed here a couple of years ago.

But there was a point when Sebastian's desire to pursue music was almost sidelined.

"I used to study medical radiation at Adelaide University, where I had to treat cancer patients and stuff like that. It ended up with me getting too depressed.

"So I quit that and was doing all sorts of jobs like cleaning, working in a warehouse, forklift driving...," he said.

With his own initiative, and thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, Sebastian slowly taught himself the technical aspects of music.

"I studied the proper techniques from the Internet and taught myself piano, drums and guitars. "Then I started teaching vocals in high schools and at the same time worked as a recording engineer and took off from there," he said.

In July last year, Sebastian decided to audition for Australian Idol (the Australian version of UK's Pop Idol and American Idol) together with more than 10,000 other hopefuls.

In November, in front of 3.65 million viewers (the most watched single telecast in the history of Australian broadcasting which is not a sports event), he was crowned the first Australian Idol winner.

Talking about his swift rise to superstardom, Sebastian revealed that he has yet to come to terms with it.

"I never thought I'd be No.1, or I would sell half a million copies of my album. I never thought of stuff like that. It all happened really quickly. From the start it was just like bang, bang and bang. I just had to adapt to it really quickly. I never actually have the time to grasp it all," he said.

"You know, for me, Australian Idol is not a beauty contest. You have to get up in front of a live audience and sing. If you suck and if you're not good, then the judges will trample and walk all over you. "You get through to the next stage because you sang well and not because you looked pretty or macho. I think the competition itself has a lot of credibility." Credibility. That's something that Sebastian takes seriously.

"Credibility as a musician is very important for me. I don't want to be considered another pop person who is not music savvy and became big just because I won a TV show. "I actually play instruments and write my own songs. Also, I'm not that good looking to qualify as a pop artiste," he said with a laugh.

At this point, one sensed that Sebastian had drafted a game plan for his career and he was careful about revealing it – he couldn't keep his eyes off the people outside the room before answering certain questions.

"I think they (BMG) showed me more than 40 songs for my album. I rejected most of them because a lot were about sex, alcohol and drugs.

"The songs on the album had to represent me. It had to represent what I am all about. That was why the album was titled Just As I Am. It has to be about me. That was why I have to have input. I had to write some songs. "That's why I'm really looking forward to my next album as I'll definitely have a lot more control over the songs and stuff by then," he said.

He laughed when he was told that for a pop soul singer who grew up listening to music by Stevie Wonder, Boyz II Men and Donnie Hathaway, he has the mind of a rocker (generally, only rock-based artistes would put a lot of premium on credibility).

"Really? (laughs). I mean I do like Lenny Kravitz and stuff like that. I guess maybe because my image is not of the clean-cut type. I guess I'm a bit lazy when it comes to image. I haven't cut my hair for a long time (laughs)," he said.

The other thing that lit him up was when he was told that we Malaysians also celebrated his victory at the Australian Idol.

"Yeah! I heard about it. It is part of Malaysia's success too. I was born there and I only changed my passport a couple of years ago. So I would say I'm still very much a Malaysian, even though I left for Australia when I was seven," he said before closing his eyes, beaming back to his days as a ‘white' boy in Klang.

"You know what? The thing that I remember the most about my childhood in Klang is the fact that I hated school. "It was all because of this big fat teacher who walked around with this huge bamboo stick. She used to call me white boy and she treated me badly.

"I can still remember, mom would drop me off to school and I would run back to the car. You know what I got for doing that? She would take me home and belt me (laughs) and then send me back to school again," he recalled.

So, what does he remember most about Malaysia, musically? (You wouldn't believe this).

"All I remember was the song Why You So Like That (laughs). I used to rap to that song when I was young," he said.

"Sorry to interrupt, but your time is up," signalled one of the BMG Music representatives. Being an opportunist, this writer couldn't help squeezing in another question – his advice to other budding musicians.

"Stop thinking about copying other people. Be yourself. Establish your own style and be confident. If you are there and going ‘err', a lot of people will sense that and they are going to dismiss you. "But if you are confident and go like ‘Like it or not, this is who I am', they're either going to like it or not going to like it.

"One more thing, you can be a rocker who thinks that competitions are not cool. "But if that's the best way to touch people and affect people's lives through your music, go for it." Now, he's not really your ordinary Pop Idol, is he?

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