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John Isner

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Any of us could say that. It's like when you have a baby. You bring that baby home from the hospital, and the thought that goes through your mind is that you are going to give this kid a perfect existence, and you're going to shelter him or her from any pain or discomfort. And then life happens, and you feel completely out of control because you realize that you don't have the power to completely shield them from the pain and discomfort of life. MB: And you don't have the power to shield them from yourself. For sure, I thought to myself, "He's going to be better than I am!" I am so flawed. I'm so flawed and so impatient, and there are so many things about me that I don't like or that I wish I could improve on. And then you go, "Oh my God, he's acting exactly like me." You do your best and nobody gets through life without bumps and bruises. Turning things over to the enormity of your career, when you're on that stage looking out over the massive crowd of 20,000 or 30,000 people who are there to watch you perform, do you ever have an out-of-body experience, like you're looking at this famous guy singing his heart out on stage and you're just like, "How did I get here?!" MB: It's weird, I used to [feel like that] years ago. I don't anymore. It's really strange to say this, but after what I've gone through and what my family has gone through, I actually talk about it during my shows. I feel so deeply connected to all those beautiful souls in the audience; I don't feel there is a difference between us. The truth is, they're singing just as much as I am. We laugh together, we dance together, and we cry to together. The truth is, I would never have gotten through what I got through without them. I don't care what people think of me. My goal in life is to be kind, and to do what I do with integrity, and just to know myself. But I'll never use the word "fan." I think it's a shitty word. It is a shitty word. MB: It's short for "fanatical," and I think that's negative. I don't think these are fanatics. I think these are beautiful human beings who need as much love, and who give as much love, as anybody else. When I'm standing there on stage, it's emotional for me. Sometimes I can control that emotion and sometimes I can't. But you're asking me how I feel, and it's overwhelming. I feel overwhelmed —and grateful. I didn't know if I was ever going to come back. When you took that hiatus to deal with your son's health, you really thought that could be it? MB: Yeah. What was the impetus for you to come back? MB: He was better. We didn't know how it was going to turn out. My heart was broken, I don't know. It wasn't that I ever fell out of love with music. I just didn't know if I had it in me to go out there and be joyful. It just wasn't something I could turn on. And you returned with an album dedicated to love. The album's title is a heart emoji, and features some of the most beautiful love songs. Is that because you were so filled with love and gratitude for your son's healing? MB: It's because I was in a bubble, looking out at the world, and I saw a lot of negative things happening around the world. I realized that I had an opportunity to put beautiful things out there. Which is so important, because we need as many people out there as possible lifting collective consciousness. MB: Sometimes I feel like I'm just one small person, but I feel like there is a lot of power that one person can generate. We can all make a difference, and it usually comes in those random acts of kindness and putting love out there. I felt that if I didn't do something that was being true to myself and true to how I felt about what the world needed, then I was one of the assholes that was making the world worse. I sat with my producer, David Foster, who had been retired. And he wasn't going back. This was a year before we ever got into the studio. I said, "Are you ever going to work again?" He said, "No, I don't think so. I love being retired. I don't think I could ever go back in the studio. What about you?" I said, "David, if I ever go back, I just want it to be joy. I want it to be bliss, and I want to work with people I love, put out beautiful music and make people fall in love." I think both of us in that moment had this epiphany. After that day, he said to me, "Well, Mike, man, if I ever come back, it would be with you." And then a year later we found ourselves in the studio doing it. What do you think you are here in this life as Michael Bublé to learn? MB: Listen, I don't know yet. I'm still learning a lot. What scares me is I've learned so much more in the past five years than I had in all my previous years combined. The reason I am reticent to give you an answer is because I can't imagine what I will learn in another five. What I've learned is how much I don't know. Life moves quickly, and… I think I sound like Ferris Bueller right now [laughs]. [Laughs] I was just thinking that! MB: [Laughs] I think just waking up in the morning and focusing on being kind. It sounds weird, but just be kind, be loving, forgive, and try to get through this very short life. And especially when you have kids, you hope your actions are louder than your words. Dare I now ask, what you feel you are here to teach? MB: I do have an idea, but it's really personal to me and I don't want to get preachy. But I do, and I think you do too. I can hear it in the way you speak. I think you have a good, solid idea of what you are doing here. I've been studying this stuff for quite some time. I hope I don't sound too airy fairy. MB: It's okay to be airy fairy. I have my faith and I try never to put it in peoples' faces, because there's a lot of people who don't believe the same things I do, and that's okay. I don't know who's right, I really don't. I can keep it simple and say I don't know what there is or what there isn't, but I feel in some way we are all connected. I know that each one of us gets to play a part in bringing goodness and humanity into the world. I feel like sometimes, because of the job I have, it can be magnified. If I can do that as best as I can, that can be my legacy. ML Buble's tenth studio album, Love [illustrated with a simple heart emoji], is out now. Visit MichaelBuble.com/tour or TicketMaster.com for information and tickets for 2019 his worldwide tour.

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