Bruno Mars doesn’t do too many interviews. However, the 31-year-old singer made an exception for Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. In his 43-minute interview, Mars talks about his upcoming album 24K Magic, his success, his thoughts on his past projects and more.
Here are six things we learned in Bruno Mars’ interview with Zane Lowe.
1. He wanted to make a movie for 24K Magic. “With this album, I wanted to make a movie. A real movie. I told myself, ‘We’re gonna have a screenplay and we’re gonna go to that.’ I said, if I can tell myself I’m shooting a movie and I need an opening to let everybody know what time it is, what’s that gonna sound and look like? It was ’24K Magic.’ That was gonna be the opening to the movie.”
2. His new album includes a song he co-wrote with Babyface. “The last record on the album, “Too Good to Say Goodbye,” me and Babyface wrote.
3. He still struggles with success. “I’m only battling myself. I only want to write the best songs I possibly can. All the statues or Time Magazine, that sh*t is beautiful and made my parents and family proud. But, there’s a battle within that you always want — you have this fighter’s spirit. I still feel like I’m chasing to prove something to myself, that I have a better song in me.”
4. His 2010 single “Just the Way You Are” was the song he was most nervous about. “I don’t know if that represented what it is I want to do. I know it’s a great song. I know it felt good to sing but was it everything I got? No…it’s a huge song…and I sing that song every night and I’m going to send it to the day I die but I want to offer more. I don’t want to be stuck behind a piano.
5. The song he’s most proud of is “Grenade.” “I like the story behind ‘Grenade.’ The thing about that song is that it didn’t sound like the version you hear today. It was much happier. I remember we had a big showcase for the label. The label invited all of these booking agents like SNL and David Letterman to our show that never seen us perform before. They put a lot of pressure on this one show we had in New York, so we were rehearsing like crazy. We were rehearsing ‘Grenade’ and it’s not working. It sounds terrible…So I told Brody, ‘Just get on piano and I’ll play the guitar and we’ll do it stripped down.’ I go up on stage and I say, ‘This is a song on the album and it’s called ‘Grenade.’ No one’s ever heard it. Until this day, I’ve never felt anything like that. That was probably my career highlight for me is singing ‘Grenade’ for the first time in a room full of people and no one’s heard this song yet.”
Watch Zane Lowe’s interview with Bruno Mars below. His new album, 24K Magic, arrives on November 18.
