Austin, we heard you're headed back into the studio for your third album. Is this true?
I am. I'm actually headed to Europe to work with some amazing musicians who I've admired for decades...since I was a teenager. For "Three", this album is going to be completely different and not my typical sound. This album...this album will be everything you never thought you needed to hear. It's going to be slow and soothing and very, very personal. It's going to be a record that your grandparents will probably say that they grew up with and that's exactly what I'm going for.
Austin Moon was, for the most part, your typical popstar. He was tall, he was good looking, he was a guy who looked like he was plucked out of a shopping catalog by a random producer, given a song to sing and that song went straight up the charts because the producer paid people off for it to do just that. He wasn't the last part, but he was the first two. He was the popstar who was given pre-written songs that he personally, really didn't like to sing. The songs, of course, were hits though because every tween girl and their mothers liked them...or maybe it was the combination of the hot guy who was singing to them about breaking down walls and stealing hearts.
Austin Moon didn't think he was a typical popstar though. He knew exactly who he was. Austin Monica Moon, who never told anyone his middle name, was the son of Michael and Maria "Mimi" Moon, the owners of a very successful mattress chain in Miami, Florida. He was the son who, when he told his parents he wanted to be an overnight sensation and they told him he'd have a billion in one chance, worked even harder to be one. He was the son who ditched college to concentrate on his music career and the result was even better than he, his older brother, or his parents had even imagined. Deferring his education brought him an American Music Award, a People's Choice Award and several Teen Choice Awards. His older brother, Christopher, was more excited about the latter than the others...all because the trophies were surfboards, and Christopher loved to surf. His most recent honor was at the BMI Awards, when no one, not even his label, was aware that he penned the latest hit for Little Lights, an up and coming country band; and he used that to get his label to finally let him write and produce all of this new album.
Austin Moon was also the guy who was actually more into music than the media or his fans even knew. Just the way the sounds, the notes of a grand piano rolled, the ping of even a triangle and the lyrics made him feel. The slight touch of a B flat on ivory keys would put more ideas in his mind than how many cupcake recipes his fave shop in Miami had. If Austin could recall, the shop had over one hundred. He could dream up ballad after ballad with just three notes, and if you gave him a string of chords, there would be a contemporary piece in minutes. Not many of his fans, still the tweens, teens and their mothers, knew he was a gifted musician. They knew his family's names and what his favorite color was, thanks to all those tween centered magazines, but they probably didn't know how many hours he'd spent as a teenager himself listening to Mozart, Salieri, Wagner, Yo Yo Ma, Duke Ellington...or as he referred to the Gods of Music.
So, as Austin Moon popped the collar of his winter coat and braved the light snowfall in an almost eerie Venice, the sound of an old Italian opera echoed through the square and he found himself humming along to it as he walked from the conservatory and towards his favorite cafe for something chocolatey and warm. It was past ten at night on a Sunday. Since he had been in the Floating City for the past two weeks, he had learned fast that the ferries to the mainland shut down early on Sundays and that nothing was open past nine. He learned that the city almost shut down all business by eight and it took getting used to. He also learned that the main cafes, the ones with all the hype and glittering lights and too many tables that were always filled up with people weren't always the best. In fact, the hole in the wall cafes were his favorite.
Tiny lamps lined walkway after walkway, his shoes making the only noise around as he finally found the lights of the cafe he had found just a few nights earlier. It wasn't just any cafe either, this was Santoli's. He had found it by walking around in circles the other day searching and now, was the only cafe he sought out after a full day inside the school. Austin had sworn he walked around the entire island, but his mentor at the conservatory assured him he had not. Placing his bare hand on the cool door handle, Austin made his way inside and only started to take his beanie off when he saw two hands jut out from the counter at the end of the space. He smiled at the notion, thankful that this cafe was run by the kindest and possibly tiniest couple with the best hearts.
"Buona notte, signora," Austin called out, coming just around the corner to greet the elderly and still beautiful woman. "Grazie."
"Sei in ritardo, signor Moon. Ero quasi paura che non saresti venuta stasera e che avrei fatto si che ho sprecato fare questi dolcetti per te," she told him, her hands doing most of the talking for her. "Siediti e non ancora andate. Marito e in avanti e ha nuovi records per voi. Vai, vai sedersi Ally."
Before Austin knew it, he was facing another person - another tiny person that Mrs. Santoli faced him towards with the push of her hands. He liked to think that his Italian was coming along, but he knew that was a lie. He did not understand a word the woman had just said. In fact, he only understood one - Moon. His last name. His vocabulary started with buon giorno and ended at grazie. Mrs. Santoli pushed him once more with his chocolatey coffee in his hand and a bag filled with treats that smelled like something dreams were made of.
The girl in front of him glanced up at him shortly, a little smirk curling at her lips. "You have no idea what she just said, do you?" she asked, her nose and eyes back in the book she had in her hands.
"That obvious?" he took a seat near her, digging into the bag and pulling out the most delectable treat he would ever see in his life.
"Just a bit. Here's what you do to learn fast," the girl turned and pulled a paper out of her bag, handing it to him. "Get a paper, get a dictionary and translate it."
"That easy?" he asked and she nodded in confirmation just as Mr. Saltoni came out, an armful of records in his arms. Austin got up instantly, abandoning the treat on the table to help the man. Just glancing at the amount of records got him excited and seeing the name on just the top had him elated. Gorni Kramer had been just one of the random musicians he found when he was a teen and had listened to his stuff, or what he could find on Youtube, over and over again. Actually seeing his record mere centimeters from his face was something he never thought he'd see and he almost dropped them all the moment he saw the name.
As Mr. Saltoni started to ramble about the records in the pile and almost shove each and every one in his face, Austin didn't notice the girl leave. Not that he would've, because he was too concentrated on all the music in his hands and the names that he couldn't wait to play and grab inspiration from. There was Gordi, there was Isa Bellini, Achille Togliani, Duo Fasano, even Nilla Pizzi. Tomorrow morning, the conservatory would be echoing with this music and he would have to remember to make it up to the couple who had welcomed him night after night and treated him like he was their long lost son coming home.
He warmed up with the coffee and another treat because Mrs. Saltoni insisted and he wasn't going to leave her waiting to see if he would eat it or not. Of course he would. It was delicious. He listened to Mr. Saltoni go on about the records, still not understanding what he was telling him before he gathered up a few and headed back to his temporary apartment, promising to return them soon. Although, he would love to listen to the records a million times and then ship them back to his parents, and make them hide them in his old room. Yea, he would be that guy.
His apartment was a mess. Although it was spacious and not the Italian apartment that he had first imagined, his clothes were still scattered all over and on top of every piece of furniture, bags of food were left out and not put away in the fridge and honestly, it looked like a squatter had been living there for decades instead of just two weeks. It was too late to do something about it right now - maybe he'd have some time later in the week on his day off to clean up. So, after flopping on the bed and scooting those clothes onto the floor and the blankets over a bit, he started to read the record backs, absorbing all he could. But of course, it was all in Italian.
Get a dictionary and translate. The girl's words came back to him then and he pulled out the phone from his back pocket, quickly searching for an online translator. He knew an online translator wasn't as good as a physical dictionary or an actual tutor to help him learn the language, but it would have to do for now. Hell, maybe that girl could be his tutor.
As he typed the words into his phone to see what they meant in English, he could already feel the beat of a song swell up in his fingers. It wasn't soft, but it wasn't pure rock either. Easy listening wasn't a genre one would ever associate with Austin Moon, but at the moment, it was all he was feeling. Abandoning his phone and leaving it next to the records he was going to sleep with tonight, he pulled out some random paper and scribbled the notes of the melody in his head. Looking back at them and hearing them come to life inside his head, Austin figured he could call this soul...or yea, this was so easy listening it would be on his grandmother's playlist. But like he said before to the entire United States of America, he was okay with that.
** Just a little something new. I was working on my main novel and this came from pictures my cousin sent me from Carnevale di Venezia. Hope you enjoy. Also, Google Translate is your best friend.