Visiting strip clubs and drinking moonshine are just some of what inspired Bruno Mars whilst he was creating his “dangerous” new album, Unorthodox Jukebox.
Bruno Mars Unorthodox Jukebox
It started with a Paris strip-club attempting to honour their surprise guest by playing his smash hit, ‘Just The Way You Are’, when Bruno Mars visited recently, with the singer resolving to write a more appropriate song for such an occasion in the future.
Because if there’s one thing more awkward than being singled out by the promoter while kicking back, post-concert, at a strip-club, it’s apparently having your entirely inappropriate hit song subsequently played in your honour.
Or at least, that’s the case in the world according to Bruno Mars.
“After a concert in Paris, we went to a strip club; the promoter got on the mic and said, ‘We have a special guest, Bruno Mars!’ – and then they played ‘Just the Way You Are’,” he told Rolling Stone recently.
“That’s the worst song to hear in that environment, so I resolved to write a good one.”
So, never to be embarrassed with unsuitable theme music at a gentlemen’s club again, Bruno worked with frequent collaborator Diplo to come up with ‘Money Make Her Smile’, which appears on his upcoming album, Unorthodox Jukebox.
“Diplo has all the sounds in his computer to make the club go wild,” Mars said of the track. “We actually wrote that to be a strip-club anthem.”
Evidently inspired, like so many songwriters, by the world around him, Bruno had a similar experience elsewhere when he went drinking with his band and there was actual moonshine on the menu.
“We drank it all night, then headed to the studio,” he recalled. “Jeff got on keyboards, Mark starts playing electronic drums that sound like Eighties Prince and I started screaming, ‘Moonshine, take us to the stars!’
“There were a lot of nights like that.”
Bruno Mars, whose real name is Peter Gene Hernandez, has seemingly always toed the line between sweet songwriter, with romantic hits like ‘Just The Way You Are’ and ‘Grenade’ and bad boy, co-writing Cee Lo Green’s hit, ‘Fuck You’ and being arrested in 2010 for possessing cocaine.
His latest album appears to be playing more on the ‘bad boy’ theme, even if his motivations are purely artistic.
Another track on Unorthodox Jukebox, ‘Gorilla’, described by Mars as being “about good old animalistic sex,” contains the line, “Got a body full of liquor with a cocaine kicker.”
“To take that line out would dilute my art,” he says. “The song needs a sense of danger. When I was a kid, pop could be dangerous but still massive. Michael Jackson would grab his crotch. Prince would rock assless chaps. With this album, I wanna let loose.”
So, strip-club owners, take note. Should you find Bruno Mars in your club one night, you’ve now got an array of more appropriate songs to choose from, so be sure to leave the ballads on the shelf.
Unorthodox Jukebox is set for release on December 7. Mars was expected to visit Australia and NZ to promote the album, but the trip has been postponed indefinitely due to a throat infection, according to his official Aussie website.
Check out the audio for ‘Moonshine’, that was revealed this week.
