Last summer Bruno Mars teamed up with Travie McCoy to release the song “Billionaire,” a feel-good frolic about ten-figure fortunes and landing on the cover of FORBES. It was an unexpected hit, selling 2 million singles in two months and lending an unusual influx of cool to business journalism.
“I was tired of spending half my day worrying about what I can and can’t spend on whatever,” he says, explaining the song’s origins poolside in Hollywood Hills. “I wouldn’t have to worry about, you know, I can’t afford to get breakfast, so I’ll wait until lunchtime to eat.’ If I was a billionaire, none of that would matter. I’d be eating diamond cereal.”
His teeth are still intact, but he is inching closer to our cover. Since breaking through in 2009 by co-writing and singing the hook on B.o.B’s song “Nothin’ on You,” he’s had a hand in five number one singles and his solo debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, has sold 2.5 million albums and 15 million singles worldwide. FORBES estimates that Mars pulled in $8 million over the past 12 months–enough to make him a strong candidate for The Celebrity 100 someday soon.
Video: Bruno Mars’ Road To Fame
“He’s just so talented,” says John Janick, co-president of Warner’s Elektra Records. “The rock alternative bands think he’s amazing, he has these pop hits and mass culture likes him, he’s got this rhythm-urban feel to him, and he can go into any of those worlds and make great-sounding songs.”
That makes Mars (real name: Peter Gene Hernandez) a promising profit center. But while writing and recording songs is lucrative–the bulk of Mars’ earnings currently comes from those avenues–the real money will flow when he starts filling arenas around the world. Though Mars has played 68 gigs in 13 countries over the past 12 months, most have been in small concert halls.
Contrast that to R&B crooner Usher (No. 32), who grossed $93 million on 81 shows over the past 12 months, according to concert data provider Pollstar, or boy wonder Justin Bieber (No. 3), who hauled in $77 million on 115 dates. Assuming both pocket about a third of gross ticket sales, that makes for take-home totals of $31 million and $25 million, respectively.
Mars’ manager, Brandon Creed, says his client’s goal has been to forgo big immediate payouts and build a loyal following by sticking to intimate spots where he can engage with his fans. He’s ramping up with 25 concerts alongside songstress Janelle Monáe through mid-June; a solo tour may follow. Mars actually rejected multiple offers to open for better-known pop acts on arena tours this year.
“He would have earned a lot more money and played in front of a lot more people,” says Randy Phillips, chief of concert promoter AEG. “Not a lot of artists would have had the balls to turn those opportunities down. He chose to play smaller venues to build his fan base and grow his career, and I respect him for that.”
Mars also has potential to join the ranks of well-paid celebrity endorsers. Although his camp says he wasn’t compensated for his reference to home exercise system P90X (he rhymes it with “really nice sex”) in his hit “The Lazy Song,” there’s no question that he’s getting a cut of another product mentioned on the same track: the Bruno Mars Snuggie, which you can buy for $25 on his website. The reference (“I’ll be loungin’ on the couch just chillin’ in my Snuggie”) slides seamlessly into the layabout anthem. “I’m not going to just take every dollar that’s offered, it has to fit right with my brand,” he says. “It has to be something I strongly believe in.”
Born in Honolulu to a Filipino hula dancer and a Puerto Rican percussionist, he made his onstage debut at 4 in a 1950s-style doo-wop revue put together by his parents, where he served as a precocious Elvis impersonator. “That’s how I got addicted to this music stuff,” he explains.
By then his father had already nicknamed the chubby youngster after wrestler Bruno Sammartino. Years later the slimmed-down singer would add Mars because friends joked that he was out of this world and because “it kind of puts a period at the end.” (Mars admits he also lengthened his moniker to differentiate himself from the Sacha Baron Cohen character of the same name.)
At 16 Mars landed a gig opening for a Waikiki Beach show called “The Magic of Polynesia.” But by the time he graduated high school he’d grown tired of the novelty act. He sent a demo tape to his sister, who was in Los Angeles working as a handbag designer. She played it for Mike Lynn, then an executive at Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment.
“My demo was terrible, I sounded like a chipmunk,” laughs Mars. “I was so young. But he heard something.”
Mars moved in with his sister in Los Angeles, and within a year he’d inked a deal with Universal Motown. When he wasn’t in the studio, he’d play to crowds of 10 to 20 people at dive bars along Ventura Boulevard with his cover band, Sex Panther. After a few months at Motown, though, he began to worry that he was spending a lot of time telling his collaborators what he wanted to sound like–and not actually achieving the desired sound. Apparently the brass at Motown shared his view and released Mars less than a year after signing him.
“My heart dropped out,” he recalls. “It’s not like the movies, where you get signed and you think hit songs are going to come to you and you tour the world. You’ve got to walk in there knowing exactly who you are.”
Mars hadn’t quite figured that out, and as a suddenly unemployed 19-year-old 2,500 miles from home he could barely afford to gas up his Jeep Cherokee. He considered giving up and returning to Hawaii before songwriter Philip Lawrence called Mars with an idea: Why not work together to write and produce songs for other artists? The duo teamed up with producer-songwriter Ari Levine, and the production team known as the Smeezingtons was born.
“He came to the conclusion that the best way to further his career was writing and producing hit songs,” says Cameron Strang, who signed Mars to a music publishing deal in 2005.
Three years later Mars met with Aaron Bay-Schuck, an artists and repertoire exec at Warner’s Atlantic Records, and played the hook and track for “Nothin’ on You.” Bay- Schuck was so impressed that he decided to buy it on the spot, and within days Mars had a new record deal as an artist. His debut album hit stores in October; plans for another are in the works. “The experience of going from obscurity to celebrity is going to make for a very rich and exciting new album,” says Warner recorded music chief Lyor Cohen.
Considering Mars’ backstory, it’s easy to forget that he is only 25 years old. Another album and more touring could double his income next year. In the meantime he isn’t getting ahead of himself. As for landing on our cover, “I thought FORBES was a way to show [that] if I was a billionaire, I’d be smart with my money,” he says, then grins devilishly. “At first it was Playgirl, but then I changed it.”
Meet Bruno’s New Boss
Who would buy a record label in the age of iTunes? Billionaire Len Blavatnik–who isn’t saying why. Last month he agreed to pay $3.3 billion for Warner Music Group, the label behind Bruno Mars, Green Day, Kid Rock, R.E.M. and Cee Lo Green. Blavatnik bested bids from rich rivals like Ron Burkle, Ronald Perelman and perhaps even Napster cofounder Sean Parker.
A Russian-born industrialist (but a U.S. citizen) and the 80th-richest person on Earth with a personal fortune of $10.1 billion, Blavatnik built his empire by buying natural resource companies in post-Soviet Russia and still holds large stakes in oil giant TNK-BP and aluminum maker UC Rusal, one of the world’s largest.
So far he’s been quiet about his plans for money-losing Warner. But he knows the company well, having served on its board from 2004 to 2008. He reportedly bought the Manhattan town house of Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. for $50 million in 2007.
One possibility: a play for rival EMI, which could set Blavatnik back another $2.5 billion or so. Citigroup took control of the debt-ridden British label from private equity fund Terra Firma earlier this year. Analysts say a merger could trim $300 million a year in costs. Warner needs a boost. It extended its losing streak in its fiscal second quarter of 2011 ($38 million), while revenue inched ahead (2%) for the first time in over a year to $682 million–thanks in part to digital downloads. Makes you wonder whether a $3.3 billion investment in Apple might have been the smarter play.
