Troye Sivan says Michael Jackson was a huge inspiration to his music career.
The ‘Angel Baby’ hitmaker was influenced by the stage presence of the King of Pop – who died in 2009 aged 50 – to make performing his dream career after watching old footage of the ‘Bad’ superstar.
In conversation with his ‘The Idol’ co-star Rachel Sennott for Interview magazine, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter said: “It was 100 percent Michael Jackson. Growing up in the mid-’90s my parents had VHS concert tapes and my dad had this Michael Jackson one. And of course, I loved music since the day I was born. But then it clicked that you could do it for so many people. I remember watching this clip of him where he stared off into the distance for three minutes and the audience just got louder and louder, and then he just moves his head to the other side—I went ballistic. That was when I was like, ‘Damn, I want to do that.’ When it came to songwriting, that only clicked for me later in life because I always loved singing, but I would just sing covers.”
Troye also later got “obsessed” with Amy Winehouse – who died aged 27 from an alcohol overdose – and her 2006 album, ‘Back to Black’, which prompted him to pick up a pen and write his own songs.
He said: “It was Amy Winehouse. I remember listening to Back to Black when it came out. I found out she was Jewish and I was obsessed. I was like, “Why am I relating to this 24-year-old who is singing about such specific stuff?” Like what sports game she went to, or whatever. Something about writing with that specificity made the songs feel more real. It was an aha moment where I was like, ‘Oh, you can write super diaristically and it actually makes the songs better.’ That freed me up where I was like, “Okay, if I want to write songs, I don’t have to try and write for everyone. I’m going to write for me and see what happens.”