Bruno Mars On Pandora Sketch, ‘Unorthodox Jukebox’ & Crossing Genres
Bruno Mars was on with Scott & Todd in the Morning the other day on 95.5 PLJ in New York, where he talked about hosting and performing on ‘Saturday Night Live’, how the Pandora sketch was written on the day of the show, having fun by crossing genres, wanting to write songs that stand the test of time, what he wants listeners to get out of ‘Unorthodox Jukebox’ and going on tour for the first time.
“It was an outer body experience,” Bruno said about the ‘SNL’ hosting duties. “I don’t know why they called me to do it. It’s funny because ‘we think you’re funny’, my friends tell me I’m funny all the time. You go in there and you start reading with these super pros and you clam up.”
Talking about the much buzzed Pandora sketch, he said, “That was written on Saturday night. Seth Myers said something to me on Monday. He said something about Pandora messing up. You just sing a bunch of songs. They had never heard me doing impressions before. No one has. I said, ‘Yeah, that sounds like it would be fun’. Literally it was finished and written on Saturday.”
Asked if he’d do ‘SNL’ again, Bruno responded, “Yes I would. First of all, it’s such an honor. That was my first any kind of acting whatsoever. That was my first time. Now I think I have a better view on how it goes. I know that everything is written Saturday night.”
Quized about if the experience has him itching to do more acting, he said, “Yes, Absolutely. I was trying to give a long winded answer.”
On the difficulties to adhering to a genre given his varied influences, Bruno said, “That’s how I have fun. I want to be able to go into the studio and write whatever I wanna write. I don’t want to just be every day I’m writing a new love song, an R&B song, a hip hop song. I want to be able to experiment. I feel like that’s what music should be. You should be able to do whatever the hell you want.”
Asked about improving on the music he was influenced by back in the day, Bruno said, “At the end of the day, for me as a songwriter, it’s all about the song. It’s not about the tricks and what’s hot, it’s just always about good songs that stand the test of times. A lot of the songs in the sketches I sang, those songs are forever embedded in people’s lives, ‘Billie Jean’, you strive to write that one day. For everything. You could get scientific with it, just the drums alone, the way that sounds, the way the bassline sounds, the way the melody is, what the lyrics are - I study that.”
Discussing what he wanted to accomplish with ‘Unorthodox Jukebox’, Bruno said, “It was basically just giving it everything I got. Maybe more and this time you’ll get a sense of the music I loved and grew up on and listened to and how I incorporate it in my personal music. When you hear it I hope that you get, ‘Ah, this guy sounds free’. The sense that he’s going in the studio and writing what he wants to write and he’s speaking through his heart and he’s having a good damn time.”
Watch the 2-part interview after the cut.
