18MusicWeek 13.07.12 INTERVIEWCONORMAYNARD
“I alwayswonderedwhy I didn’t get in overmy head, get too excited about it, I didn’t let it get to me and controlme. Iwas lucky to be surrounded by peoplewhowere always concerned about my best interests” – CONORMAYNARD
800,000
His debut albumis yet to be released. He has close to amillion socialmedia followers, 90million YouTube views and the ear of PharrellWilliams - it’s the phenomenon that is Conor Maynard
TALENT BY TINA HART
P
harrellWilliams has said he’s the kid that “will change the face of popmusic”. Ne-Yo started a biddingwar to sign the
youngwhippersnapper.And nowhe’s a priority act for the juggernaut that isEMI. Brighton-born 19-year-oldConorMaynard
captured the attention ofmanywhen posting his ‘coverswith a twist’onYouTube a fewyears ago. Soon his appeal had reached global proportions, and he has since amassedwhopping a 90million- plus combinedYouTube views – in addition to a loyal following of further ‘Mayniacs’amounting to (at the time of going to print) 345,000Twitter followers and 450,000 FacebookLikes (a frenzied bunch of fans that forced himtomove hotel five times on a recent promotional trip). So far in 2012Maynard has been crowned
MTV’s fan-voted ‘BrandNew’winner, seen his debut singleCan’t SayNo peak atNo. 2 on the UKOfficial SinglesChart, and he bagged the TAGNewcomerAward at theNordoffRobbins
SilverClefAwards.Now, his debut album Contrast (below, released on July 30), an urban- pop feast featuring former courters Pharrell and Ne-Yo, promises to set a newprecedent forUK R&B- and has the potential to seriously compete on a global scale. MusicWeek caught upwithMaynard,who’s
nowa longway fromhis humble beginnings spent singing into sellotaped-together Singstarmicrophones…
Your albumContrast has a modernR&Bsoundwith electronic elements in there - was it your intention to have that overarching sound or did you put your faith in the producers to steer it in that direction? It’s all my influences put into one. I listen to a lot of R&B singing.When I was younger my parents listened to people
likeMichael Jackson and StevieWonder and as a teenager I listened to Usher,Mario, Justin Timberlake,Ne-Yo, a lot of R&B singers.Right
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Photo: David Titlow/EMI Music
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