Music Promotions had the huge honour to interview singer-songwriter, solo artist and band member Marc Terenzi, about his career, his current projects and so much more. If you are looking for inspirational then look no further than Marc Terenzi, definitely of the most inspirational artists I have interviewed with over 20 years’ experience in the industry and lots more to come. Full interview below.
You’ve been recording music for a long time, what was the one moment you thought this is it this is what I want to do? I have always had music in my life, I can’t explain why as no one in my family is a musician and they didn’t have a lot of money, we didn’t have money for piano and guitar lessons so when I was 6 I used to go to my mom’s church and I used to sit down every day and play piano, I taught myself how to play and we didn’t have the internet back then so I had to get a cassette of ‘Bon Jovi’ and play it over and over until I figured out how to play and instead of going out with the kids I just knew from a young age I was going to do this and I wasn’t good in the beginning I didn’t really sing well or play piano well but I just know I wanted to do this all the time and someday I would be on stage singing for a lot of people and entertaining them, I can’t say why because no one in my family inspired me but I knew this was what I was going to do.
Having released two Solo albums are you working on a third? I am working on a new solo album along with this project I am doing with this boyband, I have been working on some solo music for a while but I haven’t believed in the record labels in a long time because for them its let’s put out a single and see if it works and if it doesn’t forget it and it wasn’t the way it was 15 years ago when the record labels stood behind you as a family when you were doing it, I have been creating music over the past few years to support the shows and events I have been doing so music has always found a way into everything I have been doing. I have a rock musical that I write music for as well, I have turned music into supporting the other projects that I am working on, music is always a part of whatever I am doing, I was in a strip group for a few years and I created music for this and now I go back into being the artist that I want to be, I have done a lot of other things and now I am focusing directly on music and the direction that I want to go in.
Do you have any new music ready to be released? With the boyband for the German market, we are releasing music for this project, We are the first people to do something like this and along that line I thought I am going to take songs I have written over the last ten years and never used and put them into an album and start releasing them online, like ‘Spotify’ just one after the other every couple of weeks just release a new song because I have so much music so why not get it out there and see what happens, with my solo project I don’t go for the goal about being super famous as I have already achieved this in a way but just release good music for my fan base and keep putting out good quality projects, I don’t need a record label for that, today you can release anything on the internet without them so I have plans for a lot of stuff in the future not just for myself but for my kids as well.
Do you think social media has helped with how to release music now? People say social media killed the industry but no this is like the most amazing tool we have, people are afraid to change but I like change and I like to try new things, with social media I can directly tell the audience what I want to say without having to do it with the magazines because people can only see a magazine or a tv interview they can’t see any other way and they can change the words and then that’s the only view people can have of you, now I go on Instagram and you know its directly from me, soon as I press something and post it, I use Facebook and Instagram as a tool to tell my story and connect with my fans I see it as a mega plus it’s not about selling a million albums any more, I think give the fans everything for free or put certain things out online so they can come and enjoy your show, it’s amazing tool and something you have to spend a lot of time on, doing social media you have to really like it as its very time consuming, I think I spend 5/6 hours a day on social media, creating and editing content I love it. It’s not fans that your record label or magazine has, these are your fans that are directly connected to you.
Will you be doing any live streaming concerts?I have done a live stream for my fans reminding them of the music but I have to be honest I am not a fan of live streaming music you’re in a big hall and no one is there you are missing this big connection with the fans, or these cars one’s concerts where you are sat in the car watching a show but that’s not what my shows are about, my shows are about connecting with the audience. I am focusing on a lot behind the scenes at the moment, live shows will come back, you can’t compare it with an online streaming concert it’s just not the same and I would rather take my guitar and make a small video for Instagram and post that as its more personal.
How much would you say your music has changed throughout the years? I have a lot of different projects, the cool thing with Horror nights I can try anything I want it’s kind of like my playground, mixing mainstream music with rock, metal, pop, rap with these beautiful ballads just trying to create different types of music which worked really well, we were no12 in the charts without selling it anywhere else but the event, the one thing about me is that I always have main stream choruses, a chorus that everyone can understand, my heart will always lie with ballads and love songs, my favorite thing is positive songs and pop music, pop music can define me because it can go in many different directions, I have done many different things over the years but me I am a main stream pop artist.
The last single you released was ‘No Trouble at All’ (on Apple Music U.K. that was the last one anyway) is this the kind of style we can expect from you moving forward? That was like 80’s rock sound, this is more modern stuff which would define me in music, I would say that’s really my thing but rock doesn’t play on the radio, rock music has disappeared right now, the problem with music at the moment is you have to decide ‘do you want to make music for yourself’ or do you want to make music for mainstream audience?, to be flexible, change and try different things and right now music is very mainstream and poppy and not so rock but I released that song for the Sixx Paxx strip tour which I did and that is a good definition of the music that I like personally but for me it doesn’t really matter because music is music to me, weather I play that kind of music or I play pop, for me it’s all about playing good music and entertaining I like all types of music.
What about The Voice and X Factor route, would you have gone that way if you could or you glad you started out how you did? It’s not for me because I have so much experience that kids today don’t have, we really put in the work and went through that crazy bootcamp stage and fought our way to the top and know what the struggle is to get there whereas a lot of kids are going online getting a YouTube hit and having it go viral and having no idea of anything else aside from that and it’s hard for them to have longevity they don’t know how to direct there career and it’s difficult to stick around for a long time, I am happy that I had the experiences that I did and fought my way to the top, we started with that whole touring when there wasn’t the internet and we had to go to every city, it was a lot of work but I learnt so much over the years that I can give to other people now. I have realized that a lot of the new artist just don’t know what to do, how it works, it’s a huge industry. With the boyband now we have all experienced being in different bands and we know what we have all been through, the cool thing with Jay is we have known each other for 20 years, we lived together, he was in a different band to me and now we are in the same band, it cool to be in the same band with a member who has all that experience and we have three new members that we can give them that experience so we don’t make the same mistakes that we did before and I see now when you are a solo artist you are on your own, when you are in a group with someone like him who has done the same thing for 20 years it makes it much more fun and much more easy and it’s a completely different experience. I think shows like The Voice and yes, it’s a great possibility for someone who has no chance of making it to a record label, someone who might not look as good or sound the best but has that x factor something special about them that the record label wouldn’t get to see in them so I think it’s a possibility for people, I don’t agree that sometimes they have people on the show, they become big with one hit and you don’t see them again because they have a bad contract, on The voice the next year becomes a new person and that’s the hard part about that you have to be really strong and smart about what you do with it afterwards.
Would you like to start your own label and maybe mentor artists? I don’t think I would start my own label as that’s a whole other side, dealing with all the contracts, dealing with all the radio, I am more of the artist, more into creating, I am lucky that I have a business woman by my side, my girlfriend, she is a big business woman she can do all that kind of stuff and I can be creative but a label is a lot of work. I do help mentor and manage other artists Ive been doing that a couple of years, building up new artists getting them ready for stage, helping them with their music videos and helping them on their way, it’s something Ive done for a while and I do enjoy it and the greatest part is my kids are getting old enough, my son is 17 and my daughter is 14 they are both amazingly talented and I can help them to grow, it is the best thing in the world to work with my kids.
As a song writer where do you find your inspiration for writing songs what is your process? My daughter is an incredible songwriter for 14 and she told me yesterday I can’t write music, I said its normal that you have these mental blocks, so go do something else, go watch a movie, what I do is kind of crazy its either go on vacation some were or I will play video games, I actually get a lot of my inspiration from video games the storylines in video games or from movies, I will get an idea and write a song about it. The creative process is you can’t say I am going to go into the studio for one-hour Ive been lucky over the years that I have created hundreds of songs, my process is sometimes to do something completely different like go play paintball, sometimes watch a movie and I get a lot of ideas when I am driving alone in my car.
Do you write for other artists? I write for different artists, I wrote for my ex-wife Sarah, I wrote her a couple of songs, I write more as a ghost writer, I do it more because I enjoy doing it with these people not because I want to be known as a writer whose selling music, any chance when I can write with a bunch of artists, I love to write with different groups of people it’s a really fun creative experience. In the future I am opening a new company which is me and a bunch of my successful friends, we are in the future going to write and design for other artists and for ad campaigns on tv also for movies and stuff like that. For me music is the story of my life, if I feel that way normally other people feel that way, if you listen to the lyrics of my songs you usually know what’s going on with me you don’t have to ask me just listen to the lyrics and you understand and I think that is what music is, music is more than music it is also the responsibility of a performer, our responsibility is to change the way they feel when they listen to our music or take them out of their lives for minute and get them away from their stress just forget these things when they are at out concert, you cry with them at a sad song and with a happy song everyone is happy and I think that’s a big responsibility first of all to be able to do that is amazing and I think sometimes people should take it more seriously, some artists just want the hit but I want my music to connect with the audience, when I sing a sad or happy song I want the audience to feel the same way as I do.
How did you Team5 come together? Jay is a really good friend of mine, he was in a band at the same time I was in Natural, we have done solo projects over the years and jay called me because he had this idea. I missed the time of being in a boyband it was such an amazing happy time and there hasn’t really been bands like that in a long time, boybands just disappeared and I remember this time when all these boybands was out and how amazing it was and you would go to the shows and it was an amazing magical feeling and it disappeared for many years when Jay called and said I have an idea for a boyband again who sings in German, for the German audience and I said that’s amazing for Germany and we live in Germany so why not? they would understand the lyrics for the first time in a different language and the translation is amazing and the audience is still there after 20 years just a little older so why make the band for that public not for 15 and 16 year old’s, because I think that audience is different now, all those backstreet boys, Nsync and our fans who grew up over the years let make the music for them because they are still there and there is this big hole in the market, I know 100% when people listen to this music it takes them right back to that moment they remember what they was doing, who they was with and this feeling comes back which is amazing and we thought we are going to teach it to a new generation this boyband feeling in this way and bring back this amazing positive energy after Corona and everything else we need this positivity again. A bunch of friends doing it again at our age, it is never too late, this happy go lucky let’s bring it back again. When we talked about it this was the idea and like anything else when my feeling tells me this then we do it… so we did it and we have been doing it for about a year. We have just came out with a single which was very successful we started at no1 on iTunes, no1 on amazon, No1 on the video charts and number 25 on the normal singles chart, we were expecting to start with no chart position and try and build our way up but it seems like what we were thinking about was not wrong, a lot of people have said its cool to hear these songs again, it brings back all these memories it’s a really cool process to work on because its directly with our past, I never thought in my life after else Ive done id be in a boyband again at 42!
Your album is available to pre order now? how long did you spend working on this? It’s a huge process, there are a lot of rap groups out now and putting out songs every day but this is much bigger production with instruments, sometimes we have gospel choir with kids on them and we have 5 voices and 5 part harmonies it’s a much bigger production and I think you can hear it with the end product, it’s this massive epic pop music that has been missing for a while and I think the album is going to be amazing, its super cool being American and hearing these songs in German with different words they are really good and I am super excited for the German audience to hear it and understand it for the first time and the way that “Jay” does all the production as well, he also re wrote all the words some of the translations are almost better than the originals actually. I am excited for the German audiences to experience this for the first time.
(Will your album be released outside Germany? For now, just in Germany, we will release outside Germany at some point. In Germany we are doing two albums which are covers from other songs except on this album we have one original song and then on the third album it will be all original songs.
Any plans to tour? We are going to be going to Asia and Japan, the cool thing about this band is we have two American’s, One of them is from La and I am from Boston, one was on tour with Lady Gaga for 6 years as a dancer and singer, we have a German who sings in Spanish as well which is really cool and we have a guy who is from Holland, it’s a very international group, Me, Joel, David and jay were all in boybands before and Sven is completely new, the cool thing about this is we are thinking about doing this in English version because we are all English speakers and maybe in Spanish as well, the idea makes sense in some other countries as well. We book other artists as well, a lot of DJ’s, I used to do big events and festivals, I’d say we have 2600 bookings waiting for when all the shows start up again, we will be on tour all year we don’t want to just stay in Germany we want to go around the rest of the world.
From being in a band to being solo and being in a band again, do you prefer performing with your group than being solo? Being solo is cool, because you are the creative person but to be honest after touring solo it is lonely, you get on stage by yourself but when you are with a group of guys it’s nice having your best friends on stage with you and having all these experiences together, I definitely miss that time and I am really looking forward to being on tour again with the group.
A lot of bands have reformed would you be up for a reunion with Natural? Some of the other guys didn’t like being in the group not because they didn’t like us but you have to imagine this industry is a difficult hard industry, 24 hours you are living in it and you don’t get out of it, everything from the interviews you don’t have a private life and maybe it’s not for everybody either you are going to love this industry or you will hate it. I thought everyone would love it I do but after so many years you can’t expect people to really live this way, it is 90% really hard work, traveling all of the time not really having a private life in the beginning and now we have changed everything so we know how to do things better but I understand some of the guys don’t want to be here, like Jay he wanted to be in theatre, he wanted to leave but he stayed one more year for us, he didn’t like touring and we were in 100 countries never home and I understand sometimes you want to stay in one place and be at home it is a very difficult type of life.
Do you still enjoy performing some of your old songs? In my acoustic shows I perform songs from Natural I do a history over the years of different songs, I still like them now today and on the second album there will be a German version of Put Your Arms around Me, I think that I have been able to reinvent myself a lot, from being in a boyband, to solo rock projects and Horror nights which I did and I was in a strip group for 6 years which was successful which I never expected, I think I am just lucky that I am able to change and try new things and do completely crazy and insane stuff and people come and see it, every time I try something new and it works they are all highlights for me, I am blessed that I am doing it and people want to hear it, the sky is the limit really.
What have been some of your career highlights? I am just happy that I have the life that I have and those highlights over the years of being able to do something completely different and people coming with me and having the same fans for 20 years who have followed my career is my biggest highlight of them all they support me through bad times as well. For me coming back from the depths and doing new projects is a win for my fans as well because they were there when no one else was, when I was bankrupt and all that stuff all of my friends weren’t there, I called them and they didn’t answer but my fans were always there. When people were writing bad about me in the press my fans stood by me, they are still here today, I have very few friends who did, it’s almost like my fans are my best friends in a way. That was a really big factor that pushed me to change my life, get better and do bigger things, without them I don’t think I’d be doing what I am doing today. 20 years later I still have a lot of plans for the future for me this is just the beginning.
How did you find lockdown? In lockdown I think a lot of people thought this is it it’s all over in this industry especially, I think I lost almost a million dollars’ worth of shows, but it’s the first break that I’ve had like this in a long time and actually I’ve really enjoyed being able to go back and to think for myself instead of being full of shows every day touring, to be able to sit down and really just decide who am I? What do I want to do? And spend the time to create a project like we are doing with this boyband a top-quality project I couldn’t do that before when I was touring so I probably wouldn’t have done this so I had months to sit, plan and be creative. I even opened up 5 fitness studios here in Germany as well, they are completely digitized there are no workers who work there, they are local gyms because I was thinking you know when I was a kid I used to go to my parent’s gym and hang out, that was the only gym and I would meet all of my friends there it was just local and everyone would just talk afterwards about what they were doing next as there was no internet. That’s what was missing today everything is so big and huge and it was really personal so I created a company called “Local Fit” by “Marc Terenzi”, they are all really smaller gyms inside small cities so you don’t have to drive far, just 5 minutes from your house and its only for 500 people so it’s like friends, family, business people they can all meet there and that’s the kind of the concept for it, the smaller gyms for friends and family and its actually super successful every gym is full with waiting lists even with Corona people were still signing up. I think fitness is important for people, fitness changed my life I became completely fit after I was totally out of control un healthy I changed my self completely, 6 weeks long I was twice a day into fitness I lost 35 kilos, I got ready for the strip show tour and it was the best decision I made in my life, I stopped drinking completely, stopped doing drugs, going to parties and I feel better than I have felt in my entire life so fitness did change my life and I wanted to give this back to people, it’s never too late to start you are never to old, I became a stripper at 38, I’m stood on stage next to guys who are 21 and trained their whole lives and I just started training, I think it’s possible to do anything and I am living proof of that.
My tattoo says 11:59, in my life it means one minute to midnight, its one minute before midnight, what are you going to do with the rest of your life but for me even with one minute to midnight it’s never too late to change and that’s what I live by at the moment, you can always change never been afraid to just get out there and do it. Plans for this year and final messages? With Team5unf we have plans, the band is built differently, its built for social media, being online it doesn’t matter if corona is there we are still releasing and doing all of the tv and we have a much different idea of music we have a change from the record labels and everything I do now I only do it if I have fun, If I enjoy it, I will do it, that is the motto for my life.
Instagram: Marc_terenzi Instagram: team5uenfofficial https://www.facebook.com/LOCALFITNESSCLUB/
