Wisecracking crooner Michael Bublé struck some serious notes during a recent interview with Macleans magazine.
The 41-year-old father of two, who has been married to actress Luisana Lopilato for nearly six years, opened up about religion, racism, and marriage equality.
“I’m fascinated by politics,” Bublé told writer Elio Iannacci.
“As I’ve gotten older and the world has gotten far more complicated . . . I’m more knowledgeable of how complicated it’s becoming. Through all of this injustice, I can only hope that at least I can communicate about it.”
B.C.-born Bublé said he loves to watch famous atheists like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins on YouTube as well as scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He called the late Christopher Hitchens, an outspoken critic of religion, “perhaps the greatest orator ever.”
The singer, whose new album Nobody But Me comes out Oct. 21, said it’s important to have a conversation about social injustices.
“The fact that there’s a more open discussion about everything from feminism to racism . . . I look at my two boys . . . this is their future I’m talking about,” he explained.
“When I’ll be long gone, it’ll be them and their kids. I know that sometimes the darkest times are followed by the lightest. Sometimes bad things have to happen for good things to happen. At the very worst, we’re having very open discussions, discussions about things we didn’t even know f–king existed.”
Bublé said U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has stirred up a lot of issues. “It’s a real conversation,” he said.
“We’re just people trying to fall in love as nations and human beings. We need therapy, man. The world does.”
Bublé also voiced his support for marriage equality.
“There’s a deeper issue there. It’s prejudice,” he told Macleans.
“My Uncle Mike and Uncle Frank were married. They must be together for fortysomething years now. Long story short, there was never any stigma attached to that. At the youngest age, I remember my dad saying, ‘Sometimes men love men and women love women. It’s nature.’
“I look at my little ones and I love them so much. I think to myself, ‘By God, if my son is gay, it’s not that he was turned or learned into it. My son, his soul, the way he was born . . . this is him.’ If he had any pain in feeling that he couldn’t express to me, that would hurt.”
Bublé said people need to chill out.
“A lot of these subjects blend into the same thing: intolerance. When you’re a little kid, you don’t know that it’s going to get better. Your life experience hasn’t told you that,” he said.
“I want to protect those people. I want to send out a message and at least try to get that across.”