Biography

When Justin Nozuka claims to feel old, half of you wants to hug him. The other half has to concede that Holly, his debut album, is frighteningly grown-up. Vocals that shift from Ben Harper-style blues through intense, earthy soul to the high-register R&B of a young Michael Jackson, lyrics that unfold like modern-day fables and a playfulness that oozes from both light-hearted love songs and a dark murder ballad are rarely the stuff of recent school leavers. Nozuka may have the glossy good looks of a typical teen star, but they couldn’t be more deceptive.

Born in New York, raised in Canada and part-Japanese, Nozuka has been making music all through his teens. One of seven children raised by a single mother in a few cities in Ontario, he wrote his first song aged 12, formed a band with his brothers the following year and, by 16, was playing solo in clubs and coffee-houses, selling home-made CDs from a stall after shows.

Last year, while still at highschool, he hired producer, Bill Bell to record Holly without the aid of a record company. Since then Justin has surrounded himself with a team that has helped him through the hurldes of the music business.

'By then, I had done most of the groundwork myself,' says Nozuka. 'I had created a buzz, industry folk were coming to my shows and I had a good team of people to help me. I didn’t send out demos because I wanted the right offer to come to me, not go chasing labels whose agenda might have been different to mine. In fact, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sign with anyone.'

Yet the right offer did arrive -although it had to travel some way to reach him. When the head of London’s Outcaste Records was tipped off about Nozuka, it took only a click to the songwriter’s heavily-viewed MySpace page to convince him to fly to Canada. Initially hesitant, Nozuka was won over by the label’s passion and promise to leave his songs as they were.

This spring, between sitting his final exams - the results are still pending, though they couldn’t be less eagerly awaited - Nozuka made the first of several trips to Britain for what was supposed to be a softrelease of Holly. Instead, limited-edition first single After Tonight, a seductive ballad with soaring chorus, found itself championed by Jo Whiley at Radio 1, playlisted at Radio 2 and named iTunes Single Of The Week. The press were no less effusive, with Q praising Nozuka's 'scuffed gravitas, rare lightness and sensitivity’in a four star review of Holly and everyone from the tabloids to the Sundays claiming to have stumbled across a surefire new star. Meanwhile the massive Myspace and Bebo activity around Justin saw him getting the ‘front page’of both social networking sites and interacting with his young UK fans from Canada. Low-key shows sold out,

Justin was booked to open for Ziggy Marley in Toronto and began racking up air miles as though they were going out of fashion.

That he has been hailed the new Jack Johnson, the next James Morrison and a guitar-playing John Legend is proof that Nozuka has talent of a rare variety.

A singer/songwriter, but from the tradition of R&B rather than folk, he cites his own heroes as Lauryn Hill and Michael Jackson, but purposely makes music that is hard to pin down. 'I enjoy exploring different themes with my songs and I try to stay away from creating the same vibe twice.' explains Nozuka. 'It’s the same with my voice - I try to fit my vocals to the lyric and vibe of the song I’m singing. Vocally, I’m inspired at the moment by Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay, and Joe Cocker. Each sing with intense emotion and control.'

Lyrically, Nozuka tells tall tales, often plucked from his vivid imagination. Holly’s opening track, Down In A Cold Dirty Well, sees him trapped underground, listening to everyday life continue above him, certain he will die where he lies. On the lively Criminal, he concocts an outrageous scenario that beginswith a beer bottle broken for fun and concludes with him fleeing to New Mexico, a fugitive from the law.

'I love to make up stories I can get lost in on stage,' he says. 'And when a gig is going well, I can see the crowd getting lost in them too. I watch them waiting to hear what the outcome will be, following every line. A lot of old country classics have that sort of drama, but you rarely hear it these days.'

Mr. Therapy Man is another standout song that has been praised for its imaginative lyrics. Yet sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. 'The story of Mr. Therapy Man is that of a man who loses his love unexpectedly and now contemplating whether he should live on. When I was younger my parents separated, and my mother had put me through some therapy. I guess this song was inspired by that.' admits Justin. At home, he and his brothers used to compete in talent shows for their two sisters, mother and guests. Eventually, led by eldest brother George, now a singer too.

Elsewhere on Holly, Nozuka blends fiction and fact so incisively it feels almost intrusive to ask what is real and what’s not. Forthcoming single Golden Train depicts a man with an average lifestyle paranoid that his wife will leave him for someone who has more to offer. The moving Save Me, meanwhile, is a tale of violent domestic abuse Nozuka admits was inspired by disfunctional relationships he’s observered.

For Nozuka, you sense, music has always been a means of escape. He learnt to play guitar while at boarding school, after befriending a pair of Mexicans who regularly performed in the foyer. Atter boarding school he went to a public arts school in Toronto called the Etobicoke School of Arts - which is getting a reputation in Canada for nuturing some of its most promising new musicians - Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Metric’s Emily Haines met as students there.

At home, he and his brothers used to compete for their mother’s praise - she is a painter, dancer and songwriter whose talent rubbed off on all seven siblings -by singing around the dinner table. Eventually, led by eldest brother George, now a singer, the four brothers formed their own R&B boy band, playing at schools and local events, including a fashion show for which they made up their own, Michael Jackson-inspired dance routines.

At 15, Nozuka wrote what he knew straight away was his breakthrough song. 'I had been writing songs since the age of 12, mostly copying whatever I heard on the radio that day,' he recalls. 'Even then, I knew music would be my career, although looking back, what I was writing was rubbish. Then, when I was 15, I wrote a song about a girl I was seeing and realised it had come straight from my soul. I meant it when I said we would be soul mates forever, even if we split up, and I could convey that emotion when I sang. As it turned out, we weren’t soul mates at all, but by the time I knew that, I had found my writing feet.'

From then on, the songs flowed until Nozuka had an albums worth of material. As well as selling CDs at gigs, he built up a strong internet following - 600,000 plays and counting on his MySpace page, while he proved so popular on Bebo, they invited him to play shows specially streamed on the site. Last year, with producer Bill Bell, Nozuka booked a Toronto studio and over two months, the pair created Holly, a stripped-down, spellbinding album that will stand the test of time.

'For this album I wanted the production process to be easy and natural.' says Justin. 'I trusted and allowed Bill in going with his creative flow. When something didn’t feel right, we changed it. We used a handful of session musicians, but only sparingly, when they were really required. Most of Holly was created over a one take vocal and acoustic guitar in Bill’s condo.'

What is obvious from even a single listen to Holly is that Nozuka has no intention of coasting on anyone’s coat tails - 'I love the strong singer/songwriter scene here right now,' he says, 'but the sort of music I make comes from a totally different place.' More importantly, it reveals an artist with real staying power. 'I sometimes feel old to be doing what I’m doing because I’ve spent six years fighting to get in to this position,' says Nozuka. 'But I’m constantly reminded that I’m at a young age for this game.'