House of the Rising Sons: Another Iglesias Emerges

Julio Iglesias Jr. is used to attention. After all, he has one of the most famous names in the world.

“Whenever I’ve done something, even if it’s just a little petty thing, I do a lot of interviews,” says the older of Julio Iglesias’ two grown sons. “When I [modeled for Gianni] Versace in Argentina, I did like 50 or 60 interviews in one day. It was like next, next. . . . And my father always comes up.”

He looks impishly at a reporter before adding, “I know what you’re going to ask me! You’re going to ask me about my father.”

Soon, though, people will be asking Julio Iglesias Jr. about himself.

In March, Epic Records will release the younger Julio’s first album, “Under My Eyes,” and radio stations could start playing tracks from it as early as February. Epic executives reportedly signed him to a multimillion-dollar, three-record deal, and are launching him with a full-bore global marketing campaign, gambling that the fledgling singer’s famous name, good looks and easy charm will make him a mainstream pop star.

The album’s title is an apt one--a lot of eyes and ears will be focused on Julio Iglesias Jr. to see what kind of music, and success, the third male Iglesias can make. His father is a multimillion-selling legend in the international entertainment world, while in the last three years his younger brother Enrique has also become a Grammy-winning Latin pop star.

Julio Iglesias Jr. may be used to attention, but he has to feel a certain amount of pressure right now.

And so, as he poses for yet another photographer by the long, sunlit pool behind the National Hotel on South Miami Beach, in sleek white shirt and tight black pants, a shock of black hair falling over thick eyebrows and dark eyes, Julio Iglesias Jr. looks practiced and a little uncertain.

He apologizes as the father of a family sitting nearby rises to push his baby’s stroller out of the photographer’s way, then hurries to help the man carry the stroller down some steps. Several waitresses whisper and point, and passing hotel guests eye him curiously.

Iglesias’ eyes flicker and drop, and he alternates between obliviousness and polite, slightly sheepish smiles.

In conversation he is by turns impulsive, bursting out with snatches of songs, and hesitant, crossing his arms over his chest and talking about his music in general terms.

At lunch he orders a big plate of pasta. He loves to eat, he explains, but he burns it up--he’s an avid windsurfer, water skier, tennis and basketball player. “I love sports,” he says. “Whenever I have any time, I’m doing sports. I am really competitive. If I play, I have to win.”

He is less passionately clear about what inspired him to go into music.

“When you’re a kid you don’t really think about these things,” he says. “When I was little, I used to go with my father on tour and he used to pull me up on stage with him, and I used to hate it--I would get so embarrassed. . . .

“But then I started to like it, and then I started doing some modeling, and then I did some acting, and then I got into television, and now I’m doing music.”

Epic executives say they have faith in his potential. “When I met him I thought he had star quality, but what really interested me were the songs he wrote,” says Kaz Utsunomiya, senior vice president of artists and repertoire for Epic, who, with label President Polly Anthony, actively courted Iglesias. “There’s no point in doing this just for the sake of doing it. I think he has a huge international potential; he’s got a great personality, he has the songs, looks and something more--aura.”

Along with these ingredients for mainstream stardom is the fact that his songs on the album are in English. He says that they just came out that way, citing that his taste runs to English-language pop and light R&B;, including such artists as George Michael, Madonna, Bryan Adams and early Michael Jackson. A sampling of several songs from “Under My Eyes” reveals light pop and ballads, with lush production surrounding Iglesias’ soft, husky voice.

But singing in English will also help preclude comparisons to his brother and his father (who, despite platinum albums in English, is still most famous around the world as a Latin artist), even as the Iglesias name gives him a natural launching pad.

“He’s an unknown artist, but he’s a known quantity,” says Cece Kurzman, Epic’s vice president of worldwide marketing. “His preexisting recognition is going to give us a platform of interest in the Latin community, but we’re not going exclusively to them. We look at him as a mainstream artist.”

Julio Iglesias is somewhat confounded to find himself heading what looks like a musical dynasty. “It is normal to follow a father’s career. If the father is a doctor, then sometimes the kids are going to be doctors,” said the senior Iglesias. “But it’s a surprise to any father to have two champions. Enrique has already proved that he can sell records. But Julio is even more surprising to me because his music is really his own, and even if he hasn’t proved it in the market yet, I think the album will be a smash.”

He gives them credit for their own ambitions. “I think the only inspiration they got from me was they saw how to work, and what a privileged life an artist has. Enrique has always been very independent, and Julio too.”

Now 25, Julio and his younger brother Enrique were sent to live with their father in Miami 15 years ago, after their paternal grandfather was kidnapped briefly in Spain. (They have an older sister, Chabeli, who is a Spanish television personality.)

Julio studied communications at two San Francisco area colleges, but his looks and family name soon took him elsewhere. He modeled in ads for Versace and the Gap, and on New York fashion runways; he hosted a travel show for the Travel Channel in Latin America. But he turned down a five-year contract to act in Spanish-language soap operas for Mexican television giant Televisa, a standard Latin star-making route. He already had other plans. “I knew I wanted to sing,” he says. “I wanted to get involved in acting later, when I’m older and have a beard.”

He and a longtime friend who is now his manager began talking to record companies, and in December 1997 a hopeful EMI representative introduced Iglesias to Rodolfo Castillo, a Miami producer, songwriter and arranger who has worked with a number of well-known Latin artists.

Iglesias spent the next year working with Castillo in his home studio, and began composing with his help, eventually writing or co-writing eight of the 12 songs on the record. “I think Julio always wanted to do this, especially since his brother became famous,” Castillo says. “I think he never had anyone to give him confidence, and he trusted me. He saw this as a good opportunity to be anonymous.”

One of the first people Julio played his music for was his father; unlike Enrique, who made a point of not involving his father in his career, Julio seems to have no conflicts about laying claim to his father’s name and experience.

“He was surprised, but he liked the music, I mean really liked it,” Julio Jr. says. “If he didn’t I would have been in trouble.”

He is a little defensive when asked about his tastes. “Everyone says they like good music, but how do you define good music? That’s what I like--good music. Music with a good beat, that catches you, that tells you something musically and lyrically.” His voice becomes warmer when he talks about his songs, his music, but he can’t seem to articulate much about them--almost as if he’s afraid to say the wrong thing.

As golden as Julio Iglesias Jr.’s situation seems, it’s also stressful.

“This will be a test for him,” says Elsten Torres, a Miami singer-songwriter who wrote the lyrics for “Under My Eyes” and “Welcome to My World.”

If so, Iglesias isn’t admitting to any anxieties. He says he is excited about performing, but that won’t come for a while. First come the album release, the endless globe-trotting promotional tours that he’s seen so much of with his father and brother, the wait to see if the record makes it on radio.

“Everybody knows” about this record, he says, and laughs nervously. “Ohhh yeah--everybody knows.”