CNN.com - Enrique Iglesias: 'Onstage, I'm the happiest person in the world'
Ava Arnold
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(CNN) -- Singer/songwriter Enrique Iglesias recently sat down with CNN's The Music Room to reveal a few secrets about his passion for writing and how he deals with screaming female fans when he goes on stage. Here's part of the transcript.
TMR: Tell me what the song "Hero" means to you.
Iglesias: I think it's just a simple song. When I tell people that they say, "what do you mean simple?" I mean, I think it's difficult to write a simple song. Those are the difficult songs to write to make it very simple and still touch your heart. You know for me it's just a simple love song. And the way I wrote that song was also very simple. I wrote that song in 20 minutes, I was in my house and I knew I had fallen in love with it. I didn't know it was going to be the first single. For me it's a career song, it's a song that I feel that I can sing 20 years from now and not feel like an idiot when I'm singing it.
TMR: Did you think it was inappropriate that "Hero" became a post-September 11 soother.
Iglesias: Well, that's not what I wrote the song for, but, it's a love song and I think that after September 11, I think that what people needed was love. I mean anything that was sentimental, had to do with love, that was positive, helped.
TMR: How do you like touring?
Iglesias: I love touring, it's a payoff and I don't mean moneywise. I mean you realize all the work, all the promotion it's all worth it as long as you can feel that. For me when I'm onstage, I'm the happiest person in the world. It's just, my band for me -- they're like family, and I like going on the road with them.
TMR: Have you noticed that the audience is filled with lots of young, screaming women?
Iglesias: I've noticed a lot on this tour there are so many different ages in the crowd. It amazes me. There are kids from 10, 12, 14 up to 40 years old. You know, and men, women, couples.
TMR: Yes. But how do you cope with all those screaming girls?
Iglesias: It still shocks me because when I used to walk into class when I was 18, no girls used to scream. So it still shocks me till today that I can go out onstage and hear so much clapping and so much screaming. It's very hard to get used to. Don't get me wrong, it's good, it's good. I am going to miss it the day I don't have it.
TMR: Tell me a little bit about how you got into music.
Iglesias: I just fell into it. I just started to write songs when I was 13 or 14 and I realized I could sit down for 8 hours or for 6 hours in a row and I was consistent at it. I wouldn't get bored. I loved it. It was the only way I really knew how to express myself. I was a shy kid in many ways and for me, music was like therapy and it helped me. It helped me through my teenage years a lot. And I just knew that someday I was going to fall into it either directly or indirectly.
TMR: Has your father influenced your music career?
Iglesias: The older I get the more I enjoy my dad's music. Not so much musically, but when it comes down to work ethics, he just keeps on going. He's amazing how much he works. Watching him and growing up with him and noticing how much he fought to get where he is right now -- it's really inspiring.
TMR: Was he surprised when he learned you wanted to be a musician?
Iglesias: I think everybody was surprised because nobody expected it. I was one of those kids who thought that if I tell people what I want to do it's like telling people it's a wish. You don't think it'll come true if you tell too many people or if you tell anyone at all.
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