Not everyone begins writing songs at 8 years old.

And not everyone signs a recording contract with Atlantic Records by age 14, either. However, that’s the story of Cody Simpson’s life.

The Australian singer left his home country for the United States a year ago this month after music producer Shawn Campbell stumbled upon a random video of Cody on YouTube. And shortly thereafter, another star was born thanks to the World Wide Web.

Cody was attending normal school with normal friends as a normal kid, but a taped school talent show revealed enough talent to Campbell that he flew Cody and his family out to Maryland to record a few songs.

After Cody decided to jump out of the water (he was a championship swimmer for his age group in Queensland) and into the music realm, he relocated to the United States and began working as a full-time musician.

Being a young, pop-singing blonde with flippable hair, Cody’s comparisons to Justin Bieber are obvious, but he’ll be the first to tell you the two are quite different — at least in the musical directions they wish to pursue.

Contributing to more than a few songs on his upcoming September release, including the Disney Radio hit “All Day,” Cody will provide the teenage gusto at KISS-FM 95.9’s Summer Slam at Chickenfest on Saturday night after Laze & Royal and i SQUARE warm up the stage.

How does it feel to be in the position you’re in at 14 years old when some musicians have been trying their whole lives to “make it”?

I feel super grateful and blessed with what I’ve been given. … Like you said, there are so many artists that have been trying their whole lives to break into the industry, and I feel blessed that I’ve had the opportunity for it to happen in such a short amount of time. A little over a year ago, I was still on the other side of the world swimming and going to regular school.

Tell me how you went from YouTube to being signed by a major recording label?

I’ll break down the story for you. The first video I posted I performed at a school talent show with my sister’s friend. I wasn’t going to perform at it, but she asked me to join her and make it a duet. So we did that, posted it online, made a YouTube account just for fun, and then all of the sudden there’d be 100 views. Then there’d be 1,000 views. Then 10,000 views. Then it’d get like 100,000 views, and then all of the sudden this music producer Shawn Campbell found me online. It was only like a few months after we posted the videos and like I said before, it happened super fast. He flew us over to Maryland where he was living with his family, and we stayed there for two weeks and recorded a few songs. He took me to New York and introduced me to a bunch of great people at Atlantic Records, and we signed a month or two later with Atlantic and got going.

So when you posted those videos on YouTube, you weren’t trying to get noticed?

No, it just kind of happened. The way he found me was almost an accident. … He went to look at a different video and my video came up in the side bar. Like you said, I didn’t really expect or try to make it happen. I just did it because I love to sing and he found it by accident.

Your rise to fame is becoming meteoric. Do you ever feel like life is moving too fast?

I guess there’s a certain sacrifice that comes with signing a deal with a major label. That is what I chose to do and I don’t regret it at all. You do sacrifice being able to hang out with friends at school every day and everything, but there’s so much more that comes along with it, and I’m definitely able to see friends every time I visit Australia. It’s not like I’m totally missing out on everything.

I’ve heard you’ve been called Justin Bieber 2.0. There are obvious comparisons, but tell me how you two are different?

When I first started posting videos, I had no idea who Justin Bieber was. People just started talking about this kid. I try my best to stay away from everything that he does. I’m a big fan of his and it’s not like we haven’t met or spoken before. We’ve met many times and he’s very supportive of what I do and I’m a big fan of his, but there are things that differentiate us I think. I’m from Australia, grew up near the beach and everything, and as I grow up, I’d love to go more with the guitar kind of base — Bruno Mars kind of music — and I’m sure Justin wants to go a little more urban being with Usher and all that. That’s kind of how we’re different.

Right now, it seems you have a tenor’s range. What’s the highest note you can comfortably hit?

I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name, but my voice has changed. My voice has definitely gotten much deeper in the last few months. If you would’ve talked to me like six months ago, I would’ve been like, “Hey, Mike! How are you?” (in high-pitched voice) It’s changed a lot, but lots of people when I was posting videos and my voice was still changing, they were like, “Oh, he’s not going to be able to sing in six months.” But it hasn’t affected my singing at all. It’s made it even stronger.

Source: PostCrescent.com