UNITED KINGDOM: British teen pop star Conor Maynard performs for fans in London, explains how he became a YouTube sensation and responds to claims he's a British Justin Bieber

Record ID: 530882

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: British teen pop star Conor Maynard performs for fans in London, explains how he became a YouTube sensation and responds to claims he's a British Justin Bieber
  • Date: 25th April 2012
  • Summary: CONOR WALKING DOWN STAIRS (SOUNDBITE) (English) BRITISH POP SINGER CONOR MAYNARD, SAYING: SOUNDBITE) (English) BRITISH POP SINGER CONOR MAYNARD, SAYING: "It's very flattering to be compared to someone who is so massive in the music industry and I'm so early in my career - I've just released my first song - so it's an amazing thing to happen. At the same time, in terms of
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom, United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA8S3O9XE506R6QTMEX6UKB76J0
  • Story Text: As a 19-year-old boy with a catchy pop song at number two in the UK charts and legions of screaming female fans, Conor Maynard draws obvious comparisons to U.S. pop prince Justin Bieber.
    Like his American counterpart, he became a viral sensation after posting videos of himself performing online - the British teen has had 51 million hits on his YouTube channel since putting up his first video in 2008.
    But Britain's newest pop sensation says musically, he and Bieber are in no way similar.
    "It's very flattering to be compared to someone who is so massive in the music industry and I'm so early in my career - I've just released my first song - so it's an amazing thing to happen. At the same time, in terms of our music, it cuts through that comparison, it's kind of a different sound, we're both going for different things. Obviously I'm British as well so it's kind of got a British influence in it, a British sound in some of the tracks that I've done. I think the comparison only goes as far as the fact that we're both young and came through YouTube. In terms of the music it's two different things."
    Like Justin Bieber's 'Beliebers', Maynard has extremely dedicated fans called 'Mayniacs'.
    They were out in force in London on Tuesday night (April 24) to see Maynard perform songs from his forthcoming debut album 'Contrast'.
    Speaking to Reuters before the gig, Maynard said the fans fit the name "Mayniacs" well.
    "They do some mental things sometimes. They enjoy chasing people - well me mainly and screaming a lot. I think they've become their own breed of people. There's certain things they love to do. They love to scream, they love to chase me, they love to send me the most random messages on Twitter".
    Hailing from British seaside town of Brighton, Maynard has recently moved to London, telling Reuters he enjoys a slightly lower profile there.
    He credits the beginning of his career to a comment from a girl who heard him singing in the street as a 15-year-old.
    "I was walking down the road one day after school singing a song with my friend and this girl a few paces in front of me heard and she literally ran up to me and said "you can sing!" and screamed into my face and I was like, "thanks.. ahh" - and the next day she made me sing to pretty much each and every person in my year cause they were like, I don't believe it, don't believe it kind of thing. So they came up to me and I sang and they were like "oh, oh ok we get it". And after that I started recording covers because I got a bit tired of singing to every single person in my year, every day because they wanted to hear it."
    He says he started performing songs for YouTube using an old microphone from the Playstation game 'SingStar', which he taped to the head of his bed. A cover of R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo's 'Beautiful Monster' was seen by a million people. It led to Maynard's record deal and NeYo has said he'd love to work with the teen in the future.
    His debut album 'Contrast' is set for UK release in July.
    END
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register