Michael Bublé wants to make one thing clear: He’s not retiring.
“God, that’s the last thing I want to do,” he said. “I want to be with people and I want to connect with people and I want to do this until I’m an old man or until it’s not fun anymore.
“There’s no possible way that I want to go anywhere. I just love my life.”
It’s not surprising, then, that the Canadian singer was stunned to find out that a British tabloid reported last month that he was calling it quits. When people close to him started sending him their best wishes, he replied with three words: “Consider the source.”
Bublé was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: “This is my last interview. I’m retiring from the business. I’ve made the perfect record and now I can leave at the very top.”
Although interviewer Chrissy Iley noted, “I don’t think he really means it,” the story quickly went viral as media outlets blended it with other comments in the interview, largely taken out of context.
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In a recent interview with iHeartRadio in his hometown of Vancouver, Bublé shared his thoughts on the fake news.
“I’ve tried to laugh it off. But I don’t love it, you know,” he told Nat & Drew of 103.5 QMFM. “It was really kind of low, to be honest with you.”
In 2016, Bublé announced that he was stepping out of the spotlight to care for his son Noah, who was diagnosed with cancer. He said the Daily Mail “took that statement and sprinkled in some out-of-context quotes” to come up with “click bait.”
Bublé added: “That was really disappointing for me, to have to deal with that. Who gives a damn if someone retires or not? The fact that the situation… I just don’t think is funny. It was in really bad taste, bad form and a great disappointment to me.
“It was completely what you’d expect from a tabloid.”
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Bublé, whose new album drops Nov. 16, said he is “having more fun in my life than I’ve ever had.” He just announced a nine-city Canadian tour that kicks off next April in Vancouver.
The album’s title, Love, is actually depicted with a heart emoji. Bublé confessed he doesn’t use emojis (“I love language”) and didn’t come up with the idea to use a heart.
“I loved the idea that we could have this symbol that could express this word … to decipher what this record is about,” he explained. “I thought that was really clever and really lovely.”
Love is the central theme of Bublé’s 10th studio album. “No one word could describe as much as that one word could,” he said. “I wanted it to be an exploration of this incredible emotion that all of us feel … We can all relate to being in it, out of it, looking for it.”
Fans got their first taste in late September, when Bublé released his cover of the 1952 classic “When I Fall In Love.”
The album also has standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “Unforgettable,” “I Only Have Eyes For You” and a version of “La Vie En Rose” featuring Cécile McLorin Salvant. Bublé recorded “Love You Anymore,” which was penned by Charlie Puth, and an original titled “Forever Now.”
Speaking of love, Bublé feels a lot of it for fans and fellow Canadians who expressed compassion and support during his son’s cancer battle.
“Going through what I went through, I fell in love with people even more ‘cause I saw the goodness in them. I saw the humanity out there and it gave me faith in humanity again,” he said.
“When the whole thing was happening … the world seemed like it was falling apart. My own world and the world around me.”
Bublé added: “People were so beautiful to us and my family. I was hoping we could get to a point where everything would be great – and thank God that it is – and I would be able to … tell people ‘thank you’ and how much it meant to me.
“We just felt so lucky. We just had so much gratitude.”
Tickets for Bublé’s Canadian tour dates go on sale Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. local time.
April 12 - Vancouver, BC - Rogers Arena
April 15 - Edmonton, AB - Rogers Place
April 18 - Saskatoon, SK - SaskTel Centre
April 19 - Winnipeg, MB - Bell MTS Place
July 26 - Toronto, ON - Scotiabank Arena
July 29 - London, ON - Budweiser Garden
July 30 - Ottawa, ON - Canadian Tire Centre
Aug. 1 - Montreal, QC - Bell Centre
Aug. 3 - Quebec, QC - City Centre Videotron
During his sit-down with iHeartRadio, Bublé revealed the 1958 song that puts him in a happy place, addressed the rumour that he has an ice rink in the basement of his home, and bravely sampled a popular Croatian brandy.
Special thanks to the Nimbus School of Recording & Media