Pop Talk by George Varga

Few experiences can fuel success like complete and utter failure. Grammy Award-winning pop sensation Bruno Mars learned this from a bitter, yet ultimately fruitful, personal experience that helped propel him from obscurity to fame.

Mars was only 18 when he signed a $100,000 recording deal in 2004 with Motown. The budding singer-songwriter was elated to earn a contract with the fabled record label, once home to such legends as Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, Mars' biggest musical inspiration.

Eight months later, after a series of Los Angeles recording sessions that yielded repeated frustration for the young Hawaiian native, Motown dropped him. For Mars (real name: Peter Gene Hernandez Jr.), it was a professional disaster that put him on the road to international stardom.

"It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, as far as being a reality check and (learning) what it really takes to break into this (business)," said Mars, 25, who is now on a North American tour with Janelle Monae, who performed with him on this January's Grammy Awards telecast.

"I was so young at the time that, at 18, I probably thought being signed (to Motown) was it for me," Mars continued, speaking from a recent Seattle concert stop. "But you don't know what the hell you're doing at 18. And when I got dropped, that's when I thought: 'I'll do everything on my own; I'll write my own music and produce it.'

"I was very frustrated (at Motown) because I was in (recording) studios with producers, trying to explain to them how I wanted these songs to sound. And how can you explain something you haven't done yet?"

Mars hasn't done it all, yet, not even close.

But the rising young star has become one of pop music's most in-demand collaborators, thanks to his key singing, songwriting and arranging contributions to such hit songs as Cee Lo Green's Grammy-winning "F—- You" (later retitled "Forget You"), Travis McCoy's "Billionaire," B.o.B's "Nothin' On You" and Flo Rida's "Right Round."

"I'd like to collaborate with Alicia Keys and Kings of Leon," Mars said. "I recently did a song with Eminem and would love to do another. ... My goal is to find a new artist; I'd love to produce a whole album that I'm not singing on."

Does he have any musical candidates in mind yet?

Mars chuckled. "I'm just looking; I'm holding auditions," he replied. "So, if you're 5-foot-5 with brown eyes, a cute little thing ... I'm kidding!"

Like very few of his contemporaries, Mars is equally adept creating hip-hop, pop, neo-soul, reggae or rock (both contemporary and retro).

His versatility is due, in part, to his having launched his musical career soon after he stopped wearing diapers. By age 3, Mars was singing "Hound Dog" and shaking his hips, mini-Elvis-style, as a member of his parents' Honolulu lounge band, the Love Notes. He was not yet 4 when he briefly appeared as the world's youngest Elvis impersonator on the Nicolas Cage/Sarah Jessica Parker film comedy, "Honeymoon in Vegas."

Subsequent stints in other cover bands, including the Los Angeles-based Sex Panther, gave him a keen grasp of both performing and pop song craft.

So, in particular, did the years he spent performing a slew of classic songs by Presley and Michael Jackson, both of whom made a lasting impression on the young Mars.

"Really, it was just their command," he said. "The biggest thing is the command they both have on stage ... how they can control the crowd and the band. I think there's a performance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan (TV) show where he does 'Hound Dog.' At the end, he slows it down, and — to me — it looked like an improv moment, not like something they rehearsed.

"It was like he (Presley) saw girls (in the audience) freaking out and said to himself: 'Watch me slow it down — and then really go nuts.' And he slows it down at the end and (then) starts his little dance, and he had them. The confidence Elvis and Michael exuded from stage, I'm a fan of."

Happily for Mars and his legions of mostly young fans, his years of study and emulation did not go to waste. The payoff came with his chart-topping 2010 debut solo album, "Doo-Wops and Hooligans," which yielded such No. 1 hits as "Grenade" and the Grammy-winning "Just the Way You Are."

While some of the songs are lightweight, the album is well-crafted from start to finish. What results suggests that, once his teenybop star phase concludes.

"I take the artist side of what I do very seriously," Mars said. "I feel it's my job to continue being a student of music if I want to continue being an artist and a producer of other artists. You have to keep filling your mind with other music. You have to be ahead of the curve."

On a recent video of Mars performing "Grenade" on a European TV show, he begins with a guitar on a Fender Stratocaster.

The liquid-like sound he gets from the instrument suggests an homage to the late Jimi Hendrix, not in a flashy way, but in a manner that suggests Mars is a big fan of the musicality Hendrix achieved.

"For sure," Mars said. "He's the greatest guitar player in the world ... a guy who mastered that instrument. It was talking when he played. And when he did a solo, he made the guitar cry — or made it sound like it was coming from the devil's amplifier."

During the course of his concerts, Mars sings and plays guitar, drums and — on at least one song — ukulele.

Asked how his guitar-playing impacts his drumming, and vice versa, he replied: "The drumming helps a lot when I'm producing songs or writing songs. My knowledge of drums helps more in that aspect, (although) I don't know, man. I'm not great at any of them. The guys we're talking about, the Hendrix-es, are guitar players. I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part."

Mars is now at work on his second album. It will, he promises, be superior to his first and will much better represent his undiluted musical vision.

"I feel like I know everything I did wrong on this (first) one," he said. "Not 'wrong,' but things I can do better. The next one is going to be my album."

And what can this multimillion-selling pop phenom do better?

"I've got to show you," he said. "I can show you in music better than I can tell you in words."

To find out more about George Varga and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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