” Poland is becoming more and more tolerant” – muzyka.onet.pl – 10.12.2012

http://muzyka.onet.pl/publikacje/polska-staje-sie-coraz-bardziej-tolerancyjna,1,5327339,wiadomosc.html

“Thanks to me, Poland has begun to talk about tolerance. The fact that I look the way I look, I have some kind of manners and artistic expressions does not mean that I am useless when it comes to life “says Michał Szpak, the star of New Year’s Eve in TVP 2.

Michał Szpak performed at the Warsaw Capitol Theater on 8th December and it was his birthday concert organized for him by his fans. There was an overwhelming number of females there. Szpak was giving autographs for over two hours and was taking photos with the girls. There were aloso his friends from “Dancing with the Stars’’ among the  audience. A dancer Paulina Biernat patiently waited for him in his dressing room.

During our short conversation, Michał becomes anxious twice: when I mention Maja Sablewska and Jarosław Kuźniar. About the former manager of Doda, who wanted to take up managing his career, Szpak says that ‘’she missed her five minutes’’. And Kuźniar used to laugh at Szpak during  ‘’The X – Factor” program to such an extend that the young artist could not believe it happening. He says that it was hard for him to believe that someone could be so narrow – minded. He also claims that he keeps on learning to have a distance to the world of the show business.

– For a guy who has not released a CD yet, you have very pretty fans, right?

– Yes, I can not complain. I have very attractive fans.

– Let’s have an honest and serious chat – you are 22 years old so we can do it. Are you satisfied with your career so far?

– I’m learning all the time, I’m just taking my first steps. I still have a lot to do. I am constantly discovering myself, developing and educating myself. I hope that the real career is still ahead of me.

– I’m asking, because some people say that ‘’you wasted your 5 minutes’’ after “The X- Factor”, and instead of recording an album you took part in a dancing program.

– I know that people accuse me of going to “Dancing with the Stars”. However, I will never regret this decision. In the program I experienced much more than I could have expected. I gained a huge friendship there, and this is the most important thing. Everyone of us has their ‘’5 minutes’’,  it may not be now, but it may happen tomorrow or in future. This ‘’5 minutes’’ can happen again and again while it’s hard to find real friends.

– You know whose words I’m talking about, right? Maja Sablewska mentioned that you wasted your ‘’5 minutes’’.

– I believe that my ‘’5 minutes’’ are still there ‘’waiting for me’’.

– She wanted to be your manager, right?

– Yes, she did.

– And it was you who actually did not want to cooperate?

–Yes, the contract she had presented to me was unacceptable.

– Let’s talk about your past. I had read an opinion of a psychologist about you, and he claimed that your search for a woman who could be by your side is due to the fact that your mother was not present there in your life.

– I have read the article as well, and it is a total nonsense to me. Referring to a fact that something was caused by a lack of my mother in my childhood is not true because I had been like that since my very early age, while my mother was still there. My mother left when I was 10 years old, not one year old. I have always been sensitive and I expressed myself in a different way.

– You are still in touch with your mother even though she left your father, right?

– Yes of course. I have a huge sentiment for my mother. She brought me up ‘’from scratch’’ and my dad took over the duties later on- he just had to do it and he did a great job! I have a great respect for both parents because it is not easy to bring up children. I have three siblings.

– I’ve heard that your sister studies singing in Italy and  you are going  to sing a duet with her on your new album?

– Yes, there will be a duet, as a bonus, on my album. It will be opera style.

– You live in Warsaw, right?

– Yes, I have been living in Warsaw since a few years and I feel very good here. I also started to study here.

– Do you often go to your home Jasło?

– I go every now and then. Lately, I often go there because I’m doing my driving licence over there. Also, my all rehearsals take place over there because my band is from Jasło.

– I’m asking, because after the latest article in “Wprost”, people can have an impression that you are hated over there and they want to burn you alive.

– It was very strange to me. I had spoken with a person who wrote this article and I was assured that it was supposed to be a positive one, however, after reading it, I do not notice the ‘’good intentions’’. Generally speaking, people like to make up stories. I have a great distance to it. I still learn new things about this world. Since ‘’The X – Factor” I have matured and learned to be independent.

– How do people react to you nowadays?

– There is certainly more and more acceptance and I have an impression that Poland is becoming more and more tolerant, what I really like. Sometimes people are surprisingly nice to me. When I was coming back home from a station in Warsaw some time ago, I met a group of certain people with bad reputation on my way, from local blocks of flats. While other people are often afraid of them I am used to such an environment because I have always had contact with them. A girl from this group approached me and told me that no matter what I looked like and what I did she had a great respect for me because thanks to me Poland started to talk about tolerance. The fact that I look the way I look, I have some certain manners and artistic expressions does not mean that I am useless when it comes to life.

– Considering to such changes, do you give up thinking about leaving Poland?

– I would love to go abroad. I am planning to go on a two-month course in Broadway, but only after I have sorted everything out in here. I think that I will be able to learn completely different things abroad, however I will definitely come back here because this is my home. I am not going to give up, I am not a type of person who gives up. The most important thing for me now is to record an album.

– Are you considering leaving the country for good?

– No, no. Not yet. Every country I visit gives me a different inspiration to do something that I can show here. My imagination is more compatible with what is happening abroad. People understand me better over there. I do not want to pass bad emotions on to people or suggest that everyone should dress the way I do. And my image is not feminine at all. There are many people like me abroad, for example Aerosmith  – they have been presenting themselves in a similar way for a long time.

– While talking about ‘’misunderstanding’’, do you mean the negative reception of your first mini-album? Do you think that it was not the best move at that time?

– I am glad that I recorded that album because people were thinking that I was doing nothing and that I concentrated only on “Dancing with the Stars”. I worked very hard at that time because “Dancing with the Stars” was a hard work from Monday to Sunday, 8 hours a day, not only Saturdays when it was there on TV. However, I have decided to do my best and it was a great adventure, after all, that taught me a lot. Unfortunately, I believed people that my album was not a good one. Now, I think, that I would release such an album again because it shows my personality from a different perspective and I think that the album was not bad at all.

– Were you surprised when Kuba Wojewódzki, your biggest supporter during ‘’The X- Factor’’, criticized the album very much?

– I have recently seen Kuba and I know that he is waiting for more powerful material from me and he claims that he still keeps his fingers crossed for me.

– You are not going to work on the lyrics for your new album yourself, right?

– I would like to write a text, but I have decided to leave it to professional people this time. They will write the songs for me –  Jacek Cygan, Wojtek Byrski, Andrzej Ignatowski. The album will be ready next year, I would like it to come out in Spring. It will be definitely different from the previous one. It is going to be recorded ‘’calmly and with no pressure’’. I will not release this album until I am sure of every sound and every word that I am going to sing.

– For now, people talk about you only when it comes to your image. Is it not tiring for you?

– This is Polish reality. The most interesting thing is that nobody talks about my good concerts. No one is able to criticize my performance so they do not write anything at all. People do not want to write positive articles about me, they do not want to agree with me.

Autor: Bartosz Sadulski
Źródło: Onet

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