Justin Bieber (16 page)

This sounded like a great idea to me, but it was hard to leave Atlanta. We’d only just gotten settled. I had a little papillon pup named Sammy, and I was seeing a girl I really liked. I’d also become good friends with Asher Roth and that crew. He was one step ahead of me in the business and had learned a lot of things the hard way. I absorbed a lot of that just hanging out at their house (which was just a block from mine) playing the music video game
Rock Band.
Asher had blown up pretty big by this time, so he was gone on tour most of the time, too.

“Do what you need to do,” he advised me. “This is the moment.”

What we needed to do, according to Scooter, was go anywhere we were asked to go and do our music for anyone who wanted to hear it. For free. Any time. Any place.

Usher felt that I needed another influence to guide me in the industry and develop my look, so we brought Ryan Good on board to be my stylist and temporary road manager. For a while, everyone was calling Ryan Good my “swagger coach” – which he hated almost as much as “stylist,” which isn’t at all what he does for me. Style is such a broad word. Style can be how you carry yourself and how you wear whatever you have on. I like to consider my style as very relatable. Usually I’m in blue jeans and a hoody, and the rest is in my attitude. I don’t know if it’s possible to “style” another person. I mean, a stylist can tell you what clothes to wear, but the attitude is up to you. I don’t know what the word would be, but Ry Good keeps my head on straight so I don’t come off like a douchebag. Mostly he’s a friend who’s honest with me. Everybody should have at least one of those, and I’m fortunate to have several.

It started out with just me and a guitar. Me, Mom and Ryan, traveling all across North America playing for different radio stations. Then we started doing some shopping malls and
amusement parks and stuff like that, so Scooter decided we needed dancers. We flew to LA, where a lot of the best dancers reside, and found two great guys, Antonio and Marvin. At first I didn’t know if I wanted them to be part of my wolf pack. But as soon as I got to know them, I definitely wanted them to be part of my wolf pack. We worked up choreography for our first big performance in Kansas City. We were getting more requests to do more shows, so we were able to bring in our DJ, Tay James. He also soon became part of my wolf pack

We were scheduled to appear at a mall in Toronto, and, when we first got to the store, there were two or three people in there. We sent out a message on Twitter, saying where we were, and ten minutes later about forty people showed up. Mall security kept things in line as long as they could, but pretty soon there were a couple of hundred people lined up to get into the store. They ended up blocking one whole wing of the mall so I could get out.

While we were performing in Canada, we decided to add another guitar player and start doing acoustic performances. That’s how we got Dan Kanter. I was really unsure about hiring somebody else at the time, but Dan is such an amazing musician
and a genuinely nice person. Dan and I quickly became best buds, always causing havoc. He is now also a part of my wolf pack.

I depend on my friends like a tour rigger depends on duct tape. You never know exactly when or how it’ll be needed, but you know it’ll never fail you, no matter what the crisis.

There’s a huge difference between where I was a year ago and where I am now. We could see where we were and where we needed to be. Ry Good is one of the people who helped draw the line between the two.

That was our little group a year ago, playing for forty people in the rain at the Poughkeepsie Water Park. We got up at three in the morning to be on early radio and TV shows. We sat in airports for hours, jamming and writing songs between flights. We did interviews day after day, hearing the same jokes about my hair and my size and my age.

Just for future reference, here are some of the questions that will get an actual conversation going for me:

• When people ask about my family and if I have brothers or sisters.
  (I’m a proud big brother, ready to brag about how great Jaxon and Jazmyn are.)
  
• When people ask what my favorite musical instrument is.
  (I play trumpet in addition to guitar, piano, and drums, and I’m ready to talk music anytime, anywhere.)
  
• When people ask what’s on my iPod.
  (I’m always listening to something new and interesting because everyone I meet turns me on to an artist I haven’t heard of. I like everything from Tupac to Canadian bands like Tragically Hip.)
  
• When people ask about where I come from.
  (O, Canada! I stand on guard for thee!)
  
• When people ask me about my travels.
  (Nothing cracks your mind wide open like experiencing cultures that differ from your own. I’ve learned to respect cultures that used to seem strange and eat some freaky new foods.)
  
• When people ask me about schooling and how I get it done.
  (Gives me an opening to tell about the latest prank I’ve pulled on Jenny.)
  
• When people ask me who inspired me.
  (A long list starting with Usher and Grandpa.)
  
• When people ask me about my religion.
  (Because I love God, and I don’t want to miss an opportunity to share that.)
  

Girls...

     
...Girls...

          
...Girls...

               
...Girls...

                    
...Girls...

                         
...Girls...

                              
...Girls

Nah, I’m joking. I don’t mean that. There are lots of things I really like besides girls. Like pizza. And pranking. And CHUCK NORRIS. You probably knew I was joking, but not everybody does. Here’s a clue, just for future reference. If you have to ask me if I’m being serious, I’m not. In fact, you seldom get a straight answer from anyone around here. If you ask the tour riggers what they do, TJ will tell you he’s a brain surgeon and Phildeaux will say he’s with the city’s sanitation department. Ask Scooter what his job is, and he’ll say Roadie. If you ask me how tall I am, I’ll say “seven feet.” We kid around. And we love it.

Last summer, wherever we went, fans followed, and we were always happy to see them. Word would get out on Twitter, and a crowd would gather on the street outside the radio station or the parking lot outside a bowling alley, fairground, mall, you name it.

It was crazy, but by this time Kenny joined the crew as my bodyguard. He was an Atlanta DJ who’d become a good friend. When Scooter was out of town with Asher, I’d get a little bit crazy cooped up in the house with my mom all the time, so Kenny would take me wherever I needed to go or just pick me up to go bowling or to play laser tag. Gearing up for the radio tour, Scooter decided there was no one on this earth we could trust and depend on as we could trust and depend on Kenny, so he sent Kenny off to get trained and certified in personal security.

By the time we’d finished the radio tour it was clear that Scooter’s strategy about how to launch me had worked – we had four consecutive hit singles even before
My World
came out as an album. First time for any artist – ever.

Everything about the way
My World
was released turned the old way of thinking inside out. A skinny white kid on a record with rappers with serious street cred. A teen fan favorite with no TV show. Marketing experts at the label told us we could
expect to move 60,000 in five weeks. We ended up selling 900,000 in five weeks.