Since making their debut back in 2004, classical-crossover supergroup Il Divo have risen up to the upper echelons of pop to become an international musical phenomenon – amassing sales of over 30 million-plus units worldwide, and earning 160 Gold and Platinum records across 35 countries.
Between selling out tours on multiple continents, the quartet have performed everywhere from the Summer Olympics and FIFA World Cup, to the Diamond Jubilee at Windsor and the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball, wowing audiences with their powerful vocals, undeniable charm and electrifying stage presence.
IL DIVO – Regresa a Mí (Unbreak My Heart)
After 17 years of record-breaking success, the universe dealt the group a crushing blow, when original band co-founder Carlos Marín tragically passed away due to COVID-19 in 2021.
As a mark of respect, the remaining members, Urs Bühler (tenor) of Switzerland, Sébastien Izambard (tenor) of France, and David Miller (tenor) of America, along with musical tour-de-force Steven LaBrie, embarked upon on a sold-out Greatest Hits Tour in honour of their fallen brother. A year later, LaBrie was welcomed into the Il Divo family as a full-time member.
Speaking at the time of his passing, Miller, Izambard and Buhle said of Marin: “Carlos was a larger than life personality, with a rare combination of an incredibly beautiful, God-given voice and absolutely, immense talent.”
“His passion, playfulness and sense of humour made for such a magical persona, and his laugh would always lift anyone up. He was loved by millions of fans all over the world and we were lucky and honoured to be able to perform with him in our midst for so many years. We’ll deeply miss his playfulness, friendship and brilliant voice. May everyone remember him for his beautiful soul, his amazing talent and may he forever rest in peace.”
Still reeling from such a devastating, and profound loss, the four men sought refuge in music, and returned to the recording studio to begin work on what was to become the groups 10th studio album – their first with LaBrie.
Produced by GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY Award-winning artist Carlos Fernando Lopez (Ricky Martin, Laura Pausini, Marc Anthony), XX: 20TH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM includes songs sung in English, Spanish and Italian; along with an original composition written by the band entitled, ‘Despertar Sin Ti’.
Also included are innovative remakes of classic hits from the likes of Gnarls Barkley (‘Crazy’), Ed Sheeran (‘Perfect’) and Luis Fonsi / Daddy Yankee / Justin Bieber (‘Despacito’), as well as an extra special version of Whitney Houston’s 1993 hit ‘I Have Nothing’.
To celebrate the release and subsequent success of the album, we caught up with Steven LaBrie to talk embracing change, finding balance, and how he’s adapting to life in the pop world…
You’ve been a part of the Il Divo family for a number of years now, how does it feel to be putting an album out as a fully fledged member of the band?
It feels really wonderful. When I first started to work with the group, I had no expectations or preconceived ideas of what was going to happen. I’d known David for many, many, years, and so he asked me to come in to cover a number of performances whilst Carlos was recovering. But then, as we all know, Carlos very sadly, and very tragically, passed away. There was so much uncertainty going on at the time – not just within the band, but the whole world! COVID was still dictating all of our lives, and I think we all felt a little afraid of what the future looked like. When I was then invited to join the guys on a semi-regular basis, I looked at it as an opportunity to help a friend, and to honour a singer who has been super influential in the world of music. My role within the band evolved from there, and now here we are, our album ‘XX’ is out, and we’re about to tour America.
This is obviously not your first foray into the world of music! You’ve achieved so much, and enjoyed a hugely successful solo singing career. But as you move forward and embrace this new chapter, how have you found adjusting to your new “normal” and working in a group setting?
Well, firstly thank you very much for the compliment – that’s a lovely thing to hear on a Thursday morning (laughs). How am I adjusting? That’s a really good question… it’s interesting! What I like about working in a group and being a part of this particular collective, is that we challenge each other a lot. When you’re working on your own, you always have ideas of things you’d like to try, but more often than not, a little bit of doubt will creep into your mind, and as a result you start to question your decisions, and second-guess your choices… which is not very helpful when you’re trying to get a project off the ground (laughs). So it’s nice to have three other people around you, to bounce those ideas off – in fact I think there’s something to be said in having an idea, throwing it out there and seeing how it evolves having other peoples input. I feel to enjoy the creative process a lot more now as I have that built in support around me at all times. When the four of us are all together in one room, we can make something really magical happen.
As a vocalist, does it take time to find your place singing with a new group of people? Or is it not that deep, you just get in there, and you SING!!!!!
Yes I would say there’s definitely something of an adjustment period you go through when joining an already established vocal harmony group like Il Divo, but I think that’s good thing. Any singer who has worked in this business for as long as I have, will most certainly have developed their own way of singing, and interpreting a song. For me, as I’m used to performing more operatic styles of music, in the beginning of my time in the band, I had to really work on my pronunciation and diction, because when performing more contemporary, pop songs, you don’t need to be as precise, or controlled with your delivery of each and every lyric because (if you do) it can sound a little contrived and over the top. If I thought about it there was probably more I needed to work on, but because it’s really easy for me to get in my own head, let’s not get too analytical about things (laughs).
What helped you to come to those realisations?
Do you know what’s funny? It was actually watching back some of our early performances on social media (laughs). In the pop world so many of your shows end up being posted online, whether it be on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok, so you’re able to watch back the majority of your performances pretty much the minute you’ve come off stage. There have been a couple of nights after a show, when I’ve been scrolling and come across some clips and thought to myself either: ‘oh God, that wasn’t the best’, or ‘ok, that was cool, that note worked’ – it’s been a big learning curve for me, but one that I’m really grateful for.
You touched on the sad circumstances that lead to you joining the band earlier. We would imagine singing and music must have played a huge part in helping you to bond with your new band members…
Without doubt it was a very sad, and difficult time for everybody. But I think you’re right, music and singing together definitely helped unite us. In fact, in terms of the four of us gelling together vocally, we were all a little taken aback at how quickly, and easy it was the find the right blend. Because of what Urs, Sébastian, and David had been through, everybody was feeling very vulnerable, but also emotionally open, so it made us close really fast. We clicked really easily, and as a result we enjoy singing together. That closeness has enabled us to move forward to make this new album.
As a collective, did you have a vision for what you wanted to achieve with this album, and for the type of material you wanted to record?
Yes, and it was a vision we each helped to create. The four of us spend so much time together – if we’re not in an airport, we’re in the back of car! If we’re not in the back of a car, we’re backstage a a venue or hanging out in a hotel! So the opportunity to converse with one another, and brainstorm ideas is something we’re able to do a lot. The concept for this album was born out of all of those conversations, which I personally think is really nice, because it just shows how organic and natural our creative process is. We all agreed that we wanted to do something befitting of the groups 20th anniversary, and to honour the legacy the boys had created to this point. But on the flip side of that, it was equally important to all us that we look to the future, and showcase how Il Divo have evolved over the course of the last two decades.
Talk us through your process of finding, and selecting tracks to remake for a project of this nature…
We each made, and shared playlists with one another, which we would then dissect and discuss at great length. We created our version of a perfume test (laughs) whereby we would play a song, and if it didn’t fully grab our attention by the first chorus, then it was cut!
Sounds BRUTAL!
(Laughs) I guess it kind of was! It was an interesting process that’s for sure, and one we took really seriously, because we wanted to make sure we pulled together the best collection of songs possible. Looking back it’s actually quite funny thinking about it, because there were days when we’d each have to really campaign, and champion a song we really liked and believed in! When it was my turn to sort of speak up, I’d be thinking to myself: “how can I make everybody see that this has the potential to be EPIC!” So I’d use past Il Divo remakes or original tracks as a reference point to please my case (laughs). For me, as a fan of the band, I always loved it when they delivered a really dramatic, cinematic moment! So I wanted to make sure we continued to deliver big on those types of songs.
When doing a remake, how do you as a singer, connect with a song? Is it the lyric, the melody, a vocal choice?
For me it’s all about an emotion connection, and finding that sweet spot in every song that hopefully people will connect to. So as you say, that could be a melody, a lyric or a particular note… sometimes it’s all of those things combined, every song is different.
Speaking of connections, your audience have clearly taken this album to their hearts because it is doing incredibly well – hitting the Billboard charts at #1 in Classical Crossover Albums, #1 in Classical Albums and Top 40 of Current Album Sales, you must be thrilled!
Il Divo fans are incredible! They are the most wonderful, and supportive community of people I have ever encountered. Whilst it’s been a few years now that I’ve been a part of the group, I am still blown away by how audiences react to Il Divo both on stage, and off. What the members of this collective have created is nothing short of mind blowing! People listen to their albums, and buy tickets to their shows because they feel an emotional connection to the music, and the magic that the band has created over the last 20 years. As opera singers, we connect to our chest, and when we connect to our chest, we connect to our heart, and when we do that, we’re able to connect to other peoples hearts too, and the guys have done a wonderful job at building upon and strengthening those connections with each passing year. Going to an Il Divo show is like medicine for your spirit; it’s a beautiful thing to be a part of.
Is performing live, and touring with your bandmates one of your favourite things to do?
I mean, I honestly and genuinely love everything we do together as a band, but yes, touring is up there as one of my favourite things to do. We get to travel to the most incredible places, and visit parts of the world I never thought I’d see! It’s so interesting to me to witness first hand how different countries react to us, and our show. We recently played some dates in Mexico and the audiences were so incredibly enthusiastic, grateful and appreciative of what we were doing – it was like they couldn’t get enough (laughs). Compare that to say Japan, where audiences are much more reserved and composed, they remain in their seats and listen intently, hanging on to our every word, and every note we sing. Their physical reaction may not be as visually intense, but the connection is just as strong. Then you come to you in the U.K. and audiences will yell something out at you mid-way through the show – I love that! Being in a situation where people show such deep appreciation for the thing that you’re offering to them, in our case music, is overwhelming, and wonderful.
As we said at the start of our chat, it’s been three years since you joined the band, on a personal level, what would you say you’ve learnt about yourself in that time?
To not be so hard on myself. To stop overthinking everything. To live in the moment. Me joining the group came at a time in my life where I just felt like throwing caution to the wind, and pushing past all of the limitations I’d placed upon myself. Second guessing things, and constantly being too in your head is a total waste of time and energy! You have to be fearless, and go after the things you want… even if you crash and burn, at least you can say you tried!
And how about professionally?
That taking risks from time to time can be a good thing, and that working as part of a team, and seeing a project through to completion is the most rewarding thing ever! We’ve had such a strong hand in the making of this album – from the production, to the vocal arrangements, the harmonies, the track-list, the presentation… everything! It was such an honest, and organic process. We decided who was going to sing what part, and then from there we created the harmonies around that lead vocal. It was a really fun, creative process and I have loved every minute. We would constantly ask ourselves, what do we want these songs to sound like? How do we want people to feel when they hear them? What is our inspiration? Thos moments in the studio really bonded us. I should also say that we worked with an amazing producer Carlos Lopez who brought a real magic to the table, and we’re all eternally grateful to him for the dedication he gave throughout the recording of the album.
As we enter a new season, what are most looking forward to this summer, and beyond?
I’m really excited for the upcoming tour, and to present this new music to the fans – I hope everyone enjoys the show we’ve created! From there, I think we’ll start to formulate our next creative project. We don’t know exactly what that will be yet, but it’s fun to ponder and consider what might happen next…
Il Divo’s new album ‘XX’ is available to download / stream here
Let us know your thoughts on Il Divo over on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) @CelebMix now!
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