The Daily Tribune: “A full Mike Posner experience” is what the Southfield hitmaker had in mind for his most recent tour — an seven-date Unplugged Tour run with just an acoustic guitar, a piano and a few electronic gizmos.
“I wanted to give my fans a chance to see another side of me,” explains the now Los Angeles-based Posner, 26, a Wylie E. Groves High School and Duke University alumnus who had a Top 10 single (“Cooler Than Me”) and album (31 Minutes to Takeoff) in 2010 and has collaborated on songs for Justin Bieber (“Boyfriend”), 2 Chainz, Big Time Rush, Diplo, longtime Detroit pal Big Sean and others.
“Almost every day I’m playing guitar and piano for my friends — in their living room, in my living room. I thought it’s not really fair that my fans never get to see me sing like this, so that was sort of the first germ of the ideas.
“I just wanted to give my corest of core fans that experience.”
Posner plans to play material from throughout his career and promises that “there’s a couple songs I’m doing in Detroit that I’m not doing on the rest of the tour that are really going to be moments, so I’m excited for that.” And he promises there will be a healthy sampling of songs he’s prepared for his long-awaited sophomore album, Pages, which Posner predicts will be out later this year.
“Pages is nearing completion,” says Posner, who’s already released the singles “The Way It Used to Be” and “Top of the World,” the latter with a video filmed throughout the Detroit metro area. He’s written “around 100 songs” between albums and notes that “I have a really strong body of working, and of course I’m always writing new songs.
“When the time is right it’ll come. It’s got to be something I’m proud of, first of all, and obviously I want to release it at the right time. But the timing isn’t really as important as the quality itself, so that’s what I’m focused on first and foremost.”
Some of Posner’s wealth of material may be recorded by other artists or on one of his subsequent mixtapes or even albums. He’s continued collaborating while working on Pages, too, including “maybe 10 things, 10 songs” with hot Swedish electronic artist Avicii, though none of those have been firmed up for release yet. He’s also staying in touch with Bieber, who brought Posner on stage with him last July at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena and featured him in his latest film, Believe.
And despite appearances and reports to the contrary, Posner says his pal is not in the midst of a meltdown.
“Justin’s good, man,” Posner assures. “He’s happy. I texted him a couple of weeks ago, and he’s OK. Being around him, ’cause he’s a friend of mine and we work together, I see a lot of stuff in the press that I know is not true. His situation is very blown out of proportion. People think he’s falling apart, but it’s not really the case.
“Has he made a few mistakes? Probably. But its not a self-destruction scenario. A lot of it is blatantly untrue, but it’s just something that comes with the territory, I guess.”
