‘If I Hadn’t Found Music, My Life Would Have Been Bad’

‘I never stop working. In what I wanted to do in music I’ve never had any fear. But now I’m at the top there’s nowhere to go but down; for me it’s about staying standing at the top’

Justin Bieber’s exclusive photoshoot and interview via dailymail.co.uk.

On buying a plane: “No way. It’s a total waste of money. You buy the plane, then you have to pay for storage, and on top of that you have to think about the fuel, the cost of the fuel – that’s maybe $4,000. Even hiring a private plane is like 50 or 60K. Once you get into that it becomes a habit – a bad habit. I’ll get one when I need it – if I have to go somewhere instantly – but you don’t want to buy a plane; it’s definitely not worth it.”

On music: “I never stop working. In what I wanted to do in music I’ve never had any fear. But now I’m at the top there’s nowhere to go but down; for me it’s about staying standing at the top. I’m not a kid any more – I’m an adult, I’m making the decisions and I want to keep on growing, and I believe I can.”

On crossing over: “I look at Justin Timberlake and Usher and see how they crossed over really successfully, and I’ve seen people go off at the deep end, get full of themselves, think they’re the best and end up not being anything. I’ve worked way too hard for that. I definitely don’t want to be just another teen heart-throb. But there are different ways of growing. I want to be loved like Michael Jackson was, from the four-year-olds to the 80-year-olds. I am going to change and grow through my music and doing films. This album was different. My next album will be even edgier.”

On swear words: “My music is never going to have swear words in it. Never.” 

On music vs. school: “What happened was I found something I wanted to be good at. I wasn’t good at school because I had no passion for it. If I hadn’t found music my life would have been bad. My family are all poor, so the cycle would have continued. My kids would have been poor, and their kids would have been too. I feel I broke the cycle, and when you get to break the cycle, you don’t go back.”

On the misconception: “That’s the greatest misconception of me. People think I’m a product, that they found this good-looking kid, cut his hair nice and put Auto-Tune on his voice, wrote him good songs, taught him how to dance and then said, “Here is a pop star for you.” I am the furthest thing from that. I’m a musician; I play instruments, I write songs. I’m a businessman; I want to create an empire. I want people to know I don’t just sing songs. I’m the guy who signed the girl who just had the biggest single all round the world (Carly Rae Jepsen with Call Me Maybe; he brought her to the attention of Braun, who gave him a 50 per cent cut when he signed her).”

On One Direction & the Wanted: “I am not threatened by anybody; no one can threaten me. It’s actually cool to have other young people on the scene. I’ve spent years being the only one at all these awards shows – now there are other people my age. I hang out with One Direction, and the guys from The Wanted are fun, really funny guys. I keep my distance when they go to clubs to have their fun – I go home. Drinking is definitely one way, but it’s not for me. I still want people to think I’m a good person, a good influence. I want to be around tomorrow.”

On the fans: “I love my fans; I love the mass hysteria. I mean, this was always what I wanted. And you’ve got to remember I was this kid with no marketing campaign; it was my fans that got me here. They were the ones who’d show up at radio stations when I was playing on them, and that’s how I got my record deal. That’s how everybody started saying, “Who is this kid, Justin Bieber, who has 10,000 girls outside a mall in New Jersey?”

On flying: “I just started to really not like getting on a flight. It scares me. When I get anxiety, my heart drops and starts beating really fast as if it’s going to explode. And when there’s a weird noise, it’s like, what’s that weird noise? People say you have more chance of getting into a car accident than a plane crash, but they do maybe one flight a year and I’m on planes all the time. And all the time I’m thinking I have no control. If this plane crashes I’m dead. I feel like every time I get on a plane I’m risking my life.”