When he’s not performing on stage as one-third of The Tenors, Fraser Walters is probably listening to the soundtrack from Moana.
“Oh, you know it,” he said Monday. “I know all those tunes.”
Fellow Tenor Clifton Murray added: “I think the last time I called him that was on in the background.”
A certain ubiquitous hit from the Trolls soundtrack is also on Walters’ playlist.
“My family and I have been jammin’ to Justin Timberlake lately because I have an 11-month-old daughter and she loves dancing to that song [“Can’t Stop The Feeling”],” he explained.
The third member of The Tenors, Victor Micallef, said his playlist right now is slightly more mature.
“My whole family and I are totally into Ed Sheeran at the moment,” he said. “He’s a huge talent. Love his songs. He mixes it up, sort of like we do. He mixes up his genre a bit and can carry a show, just him and a guitar.”
Is there a song The Tenors would love to belt out?
“Alessia Cara’s got some pretty awesome music that we’re like, ‘man, let’s cover that,’” said Murray. “But then we go, ‘nah, she kills it. Let her do that one for a few more years.’”
It’s little surprise the trio named a Canadian artist.
“Canada is home,” Micallef insisted. “Whenever we travel we’re very evidently Canadian because of how much we talk about it and how much we’re proud to say that we’re Canadian.”
The Tenors spoke to iHeartRadio.ca ahead of their performance at Monday night’s closing gala of the Just For Laughs festival. They will perform at the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games in Toronto on Sept. 23 and have two shows at Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg in December.
Murray hinted that the group could be putting out some music that is decidedly pop.
“The idea is to take some contemporary pop songs that just came out and do our own arrangements,” he said. “We’ve been talking about that. We’re coming up with a couple of ideas like that.”
“We do it in our shows,” Micallef added. “We’re always looking for new repertoire that would be cool in harmony.”
The Tenors still love the classic, though. They added a Smokey Robinson medley to their live show after performing it in a TV special in which the Motown legend received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
“We went to Harbour Dance Centre in Vancouver and we got a lady to choreograph the medley that we arranged,” recalled Murray. “So we were doing a little Smokey choreography. And then we incorporated it into our show and it’s been a real highlight.
“People love to see men in suits dancing, apparently.”