| �Nothing is going to hold me back� By Sarah Crosbie Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 07:00 Local News - Ryan Malcolm is willing to do pretty much anything to be crowned the king of Canadian Idol. �I had my eyebrows waxed,� he says with a smile. The smile slowly starts to disappear as he realizes that he�s just let a pretty intimate grooming secret slip. �Not that they were bushy, but my brother�s wife said we should clean them up a little so out came the warm wax and, well, �ow, ow, ow.� � Maybe it�s a lack of sleep, maybe it�s frazzled nerves or maybe it�s that, as a budding reality TV star, he�s realizing that details about his life may become fodder at water coolers across the country next week � whatever the reason, it seems that Malcolm can�t stop rambling about that waxing experience. After a split second of looking a tad worried that the world is going to know that those shapely brows aren�t a God-given gift, Malcolm, 23, smiles again and starts talking about the outfit his stepmother bought him for his Monday performance � perhaps the most important audition of his life. �It�s pretty funky. Classy yet casual. You�ll like it.� Malcolm will dish about waxing but his lips are sealed about what this outfit looks like. He wants Monday�s performance to be a �ta da!� moment. He wants Canadians to be blown away. Still, he could give his home town of Kingston just a hint about what he�s going to wear for a national audience of almost two million. �What do the clothes say? Bad boy,� he says with a laugh. �No, the outfit says I�m a guy who has worked his whole life to do something with his music and I finally have the chance to do it and nothing is going to stop me or hold me back.� On Monday at 8 p.m., Malcolm gets his chance. He has one minute to sing a song of his choice on Canadian Idol, the popular spinoff of American Idol. Across the country, 15,000 people auditioned this spring for Canadian Idol. After months of auditions, auditions and many, many more auditions, 15,000 was whittled down to 143 hopefuls � 98 women and 45 men. Malcolm made the cut. After another round of cuts, the 143 competitors became an elite 30. Again, Malcolm survived the cut. Now, the 30 singers are all vying for a spot in Canadian Idol�s Top 10. The 30 singers are divided into groups of 10. Each Monday night for three weeks, 10 singers each perform a song. At the end of the one-hour broadcast, Canadians vote for their favourite singer by phone or text messaging. The three singers in each group with the most votes go on to the Top 10. So far, two groups have performed and six Canadians have secured spots. This Monday, the final group � Malcolm�s group � hits the stage. Once the Top 10 is picked � the 10th person is decided by a wild card show on July 28 � every week one contestant is voted off the show until Canada has its first Idol. The winner receives a recording contract with music company BMG and all the fame and extra perks that come along with winning a national contest. It�s pretty wild to think that Malcolm has already beaten 14,970 Canadians to make it to the Top 30. He wasn�t even sure he�d make it past the first audition in Ottawa when he lined up with 1,200 other singers to audition for the judges, including Jake Gold, who managed Kingston�s The Tragically Hip for 17 years. �When I think about it, that those 1,200 people who waited in line with me are all gone? I�m the only one left? It�s ridiculous, hard to grasp,� he says. Now that he�s made the Top 30, he wouldn�t mind making the Top 10 or � fingers crossed � Top 5 and he�s hoping that geography is going to help him. He�s the only contestant left from Eastern Ontario � even Ottawa is claiming Malcolm as their own since no one from the capital made the cut. �With the support of Kingston, Napanee, Amherstview, Ottawa, Brockville and Cornwall, I�m going to say I could make the Top 10,� he says. Malcolm�s not off the mark about the possibility of making it to the Top 10 with the help of us Kingstonians. From Nunavut to Newfoundland and Labrador, hundreds of thousands of people are voting � but many votes are coming from contestants� home towns. The first Monday night show drew 1.8 million viewers and 700,000 votes. The second Monday night show also drew 1.8 million viewers but this time, there were 750,000 votes. �There was a lot of activity in the home towns where these kids are from,� said Sam Dynes, CTV�s director of production. Ottawa can try and claim Malcolm but he�s very loyal to his home towns � Amherstview, Napanee and Kingston. He calls Kingston home but he works at his parents� restaurant, Nostalgia Station, in the Loyalist Plaza in Amherstview. He also lived in Amherstview as a child but later moved to Napanee where he went to Westdale Park Public School and Napanee District Secondary School. And yes, Malcolm thinks he vaguely remembers seeing a certain sk8tergirl standing at her locker a few times. Let�s make one thing very clear, though � Malcolm is much more of a Sinatra boy than sk8terboi. With his thick black-rimmed glasses and brown Italian leather loafers, he�s got more of a polished than punk look. And then there�s that voice. During his first audition in Ottawa, it took the four Canadian Idol judges just 36 seconds to tell him he was moving on in the competition. Malcolm sang the first couple lines of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, one line of Creedence Clearwater Revival�s Down on the Corner and made the cut. Malcolm�s got that kind of warm tenor voice that makes people fall in love. Take Nancy Binks, a 64-year-old Amherstview antiques store owner. �Ryan always stood out. He was just such a sparkling little personality,� she says with a laugh. �Oh heavens. Those eyes of his are just something else. He was a real little showman but we shouldn�t say �little� � I don�t want to offend him.� Binks taught Malcolm when he was at Fairfield Elementary School and her store is beside Malcolm�s parents� restaurant. Binks said she knew Malcolm was always going to be a star because he wasn�t afraid to sing � even around his tough schoolyard buddies. �He was never shy. He had such a beautiful voice and he still does. When a child that age will sing, you know he�s gifted,� she says. Binks has lined up 24 people to vote for Malcolm. She said he should make it to the Top 10 because he�s talented, he�s confident and it doesn�t hurt that he�s not too hard on the old eyes. �Not only is he good looking but he�s a little different looking, isn�t he?� Another fan in Malcolm�s corner is Melanie Rankin, 23, who has been friends with him since they went to school together at Napanee�s Westdale Park more than a decade ago. Rankin has created a Web site � http://www.geocities.com/ryanmalcolm1/ryan.html � to help create some buzz about her friend. She�s also got 15 people, including her grandparents, voting for Malcolm on Monday night. �He�s got a great voice but more importantly, he�s got a dynamic stage presence,� she says. �A lot of females also pay attention to him so it�s my job to make sure he stays humble.� Rankin has also taken it upon herself to get Canadian Idol fans chatting about Malcolm on the Canadian Idol Internet message boards at CTV.ca. Her bait is working. For the most part. One of Malcolm�s ex-flames has shown up and written some nasty things about him. He says he won�t dignify the cattiness with a response. Another Malcolm critic said he was �light in the loafers,� insinuating that he�s gay. For the record, Malcolm is straight but he said if people want to think he�s gay, that�s cool � at least people are gossiping about him. Gossip leads to buzz and a buzz means people will hear the name �Ryan Malcolm� and that may mean more votes for him. To keep his cool, Malcolm is just trying to keep in mind something he heard Avril Lavigne once say: �As many people who love you will hate you,� he says. All around the world, Idol franchises have made stars of its winners � it�s a little known fact that American Idol is just one of the Idol shows. Britain has Pop Idol, there�s Deutschland sucht den Superstar in Germany, Idool 2003 in Belgium, A la Recherche de la Nouvelle Star in France, Superstar in Lebanon and also Polish Idol and South African Idol. Many of the show�s winners have scored No. 1 hits in their countries. Ed Robinson, senior vice-president of Comedy and Variety Programming at CTV, told The Whig-Standard there�s a reason why Idol works around the world and makes stars of the winners. �Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? also had international versions around the world but it was about money,� he says. �Idol is about dreams coming true. The show allows the contestants to share their passion from one side of the country to the other.� Robinson said CTV only expected 5,000 people to audition for the show and never dreamed almost two million people would be tuning in each week. He says looking back on the success of the other franchises, CTV should have known Idol would be a hit here. �There�s something about the Canadian-ness of the show and we�re proud of many things in this country and I�d say the first is hockey and the second is music.� Robinson said anyone in the Top 30 could win the whole thing � and he agreed that home towns can play a big role in who moves on to the Top 10. �Right now, it�s about wanting the local hero to do well,� he says. And how will Kingston�s local hero fare in Canadian Idol? �Ryan is a very cool guy and he has a really strong chance of doing well. He�s got a vibe about him that�s very interesting,� Robinson says. Malcolm�s older stepbrother, Reagan Smith, says Malcolm is ready for fame � get ready to remember his name. The first time Smith met Malcolm, he was a small eight-year-old with a big personality and desire to entertain. �The funny thing is, before Ryan ever started to sing, he wanted to be a star,� Smith says, starting to laugh. �He would run around in his underwear, grease up his body in vaseline and put on these weightlifting competitions and shows.� Malcolm eventually ditched barbells for bar work when his father John discovered that his kid could sing. �He started acting up � or let�s say entertaining when he was a kid. He thought he was Michael Jackson when he was seven or eight years old,� John Malcolm told The Whig. One of the first songs Ryan Malcolm ever performed was Patsy Cline�s Crazy for his stepmother Deb. Soon after that performance, Ryan, Reagan and their father John formed A Bit of Nostalgia and have been performing about 150 shows a year since. A Bit of Nostalgia sings rock, pop, soul and blues from the 1950s to tunes of today and have opened for The Inkspots, Jerry and the Pacemakers and Malcolm�s favourite, The Platters. His all-time favourite song is Smoke Gets In Your Eyes � the tune that made the Idol judges take notice. Talk to anyone in Malcolm�s world and they will say A Bit of Nostalgia has made him the singer he is today. Malcolm�s longtime friend, Rankin, says the trio has given him confidence. Stepbrother Smith says it has given him the chance to perfect the skill of being able to sing harmony. His father says the trio has pushed Malcolm to be able to do any song a cappella � his baby doesn�t need backup. And what does Malcolm say? �I�m a guy who goes into a bar and sings his heart out and loves every minute of it and the beauty of it is, it changes every single night,� he says. Of course, Malcolm wants to win the Canadian Idol competition to launch his career but he also dreams of what it could do for his father. John Malcolm has sang his whole life from church choir to high school dances to heading Johnny and the Upsetters in Montreal. He eventually formed the group The Spyders, which included Jim Clench, who went on to become a member of April Wine. Ryan Malcolm hopes that if he makes the Top 10, it will benefit A Bit of Nostalgia. �I�m going to feel pretty happy that we can all reap the benefits of my success, especially my brother and father,� he says. �My brother is an amazing singer and my father is an amazing singer. I think it will open doors for me and for them as well.� After he graduated from Napanee District Secondary School, Malcolm studied policing for one year at St. Lawrence College but decided his heart belonged to music. �Singing for so long with my dad, and knowing that he didn�t have an opportunity like this, makes it more important for me to succeed,� he says. �I�m doing this for me, for my family, my dad and I represent Kingston, so it would be good for us if I won.� Malcolm has five older brothers and sisters across Canada voting for him but Reagan Smith says all Canadians will dig his little bro on Monday when he belts out U2�s One. It seems that when people hear Malcolm sing, it�s love. Apparently, he�s so good that even a blushing bride doesn�t stand a chance in his company. Last summer, Reagan Smith married his sweetheart, Andrea. Malcolm decided to sing the happy couple a song and picked Elton John�s Your Song. �When he started singing, everyone thought it was a recording. Then, when everyone realized it was Ryan, they were glued to him,� Smith says. �It�s our wedding dance, we�re dressed to the hilt and everyone is watching Ryan sing.� Newlywed Andrea Smith obviously isn�t too upset the wedding singer stole the spotlight on the most special day of her life � after all, she is the one who recommended that Malcolm get those brows waxed. |