A comedian once said: never trust a man with two first names; he’s always trying to sell you something. David Cameron, John Howard, Jamie Oliver – free market flag wavers the lot of them. There’s also an undeniable whiff of the commercial about Guy Sebastian, Australia’s inaugural entry to the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sebastian is a signed, sealed and delivered Sony product, an Australian Idol winner turned Australian X Factor judge who’s put out eight albums of offensively inoffensive nu-soul pop and R&B in his (and the label’s) name over 12 years. And yet … I can’t help liking the guy.
We first meet 30 floors up in a Sydney hotel suite overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Officially, it’s Sebastian’s sendoff to Austria; unofficially, a press call for the Viennese tourism board. Everywhere, banners are emblazoned with this year’s Eurovision theme, Building Bridges. This is the reality of the gig, as much as the kitsch novelty pop, wry TV commentary and brazen political voting. “I don’t take it lightly,” Sebastian says.
Next time we speak, it’s over the phone, days before this weekend’s grand final. Sebastian is in another hotel room for another round of press and he’s thick with cold, not caught from being forced to surf the Danube – as some have reported – but from his two kids, left at home in North Bondi with the nanny while his wife, Jules, accompanies him to finals week.
Hawking nothing less than the dreams of a nation on Saturday night (Eurovision’s Aussie fanbase is focused but ferocious), it won’t be the first time Sebastian has represented his country on a global stage. Soon after his big break he sang at the one-off World Idol where Simon Cowell himself praised “the best voice we’ve heard all day”, before serving the following backhand: “You do look a bit odd.”
Lo the fro! Sebastian’s massive hair – a product of his Malaysian / Tamil / Portuguese / English heritage – became a trademark of his Australian Idol run but it’s long since gone, along with the charmingly ill-fitting sheepskin jacket and flares of his audition – replaced by a buzzcut, naff designer suit and chart-friendly facial topiary.
Eurovision, he says down the line from Vienna, has put him right back in time to his Idol days, when music was a competitive medium. He’s not competitive, never was. But nor is he “that naive boy from Adelaide, starry-eyed and green” anymore. “I’ve been doing it a long time. I know the task ahead.”
Sebastian puts in the hard graft. Drafted in by SBS (who broadcast Eurovision and run the Australian delegation), Sebastian knocked together a bunch of songs overnight for them to choose from – they picked the upbeat Tonight Again over a ballad – just as he wrote three of his own tracks in the six days he got to record his debut, post-Idol album in 2003.
To the Twitterati criticising SBS’s choice of act and song, Sebastian is first to admit they could have picked anyone but him. “I’m not doing it for the exposure or to have a career,” he says. “It’s not going to do me any favours in Australia.” He’s right on both counts.
Sebastian has the career: six No 1 singles, two chart-topping albums, 22 Aria nominations, a US platinum hit for Battle Scars – his Billboard-busting duet with Lupe Fiasco – and more than 3 million singles sold worldwide. But for every superfan there’s a hater. For a while, it seemed, the Australian nation wanted anyone but Guy to represent them on 23 May. Call up Kylie, call Nick Cave; even enlist Tism, the balaclava-wearing Melbourne seven-piece behind such hits as I Might Be a Cunt, but I’m Not a Fucking Cunt.
Occasionally, the fans and haters were one. When Sebastian returned to Australia from a European charm offensive to the news that the Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran had been executed in Indonesia, he put out a short track on his Facebook page in tribute (and protest) – only to receive a barrage of abuse from his followers. Sebastian is an evangelical Christian (he met his wife as a teenager in the congregation of Adelaide’s Paradise Communities Church) who has spoken out in support of same-sex marriage; a drug-free gym bro who unequivocally condemns capital punishment, even for drug smugglers.
Graham Norton has cattily dismissed Australia’s involvement in Eurovision as “nonsense”. Three months ago I was also a naysayer. Now I’m a Tonight Again born-again in a #TeamGuy T-shirt who can give Julia Zemiro of SBS a run in the cheerleader stakes. And when Sebastian’s song came on in Coles last night, I started singing along without realising it … “Everyone’s got their problems … for now let’s leave them all behind.”
But Sebastian doesn’t expect to take home the Eurovision crown, despite the latest odds putting him as high as third favourite.
“It’s like when you have a core friendship group and one of them gets a new boyfriend or girlfriend and invites them round,” he says of Australia’s wildcard inclusion in the contest. “You play a game of charades. And the new person is really competitive but no one really wants them to win. They have to do their time in the group first.”
Sebastian promises a “colourful and classy” vibe to his final performance (he uses the word “vibe” a lot; “geez” too). There’ll be no Southern Cross tattoos or flying kangaroos on stage. “People know all the Australian cliches, “ he says. “We don’t need them. Other countries don’t do it … except for the odd milkmaid stirring milk.”
