Mars was only 18 when he signed a $100,000 recording deal in 2004 with Motown. The budding singer-songwriter was elated to earn a contract with the fabled record label, once home to such legends as Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, Mars’ biggest musical inspiration.

Eight months later, after a series of Los Angeles recording sessions that yielded repeated frustration for the young Hawaiian native, Motown dropped him. For Mars (real name: Peter Gene Hernandez Jr.), it was a professional disaster that put him on the road to international stardom.

QUESTION: I’m wondering if, over the past year, you have done more interviews over past year than you care to recall?
MARS: (laughs) I’ve done quite a few.

Q: The dapper hat you wear is, I believe, a fedora, which was a signature look of Frank Sinatra. Any connection?
MARS: Um, as far as smoothness, maybe. No, I’m kidding. Frank is awesome, (but) I wear a fedora because I cut my hair one day. I used to have a big old Afro and I cut it one day and felt very naked. So I picked up a Fedora and started wearing it.

Q: Do you have any musical candidates in mind yet?
MARS: (chuckles) I’m just looking; I’m holding auditions. So, if you’re five-foot-five with brown eyes, a cute little thing… I’m kidding!

Q: It’s often been noted that a young musician has their entire life to prepare for their debut album, and then six months or a year to make the follow-up. Have you started work on your sophomore album yet?
MARS: I feel like I know everything I did wrong on this (first) one. Not ‘wrong,’ but things I can do better. The next one is going to be my album.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add.
MARS: I love (he adapts his best Will Ferrell-as-Ron Burgundy TV weatherman voice) San Diago…

Q: Come on. You’re just saying that?
MARS: (laughs with delight) …Which means ‘a whale’s vagina.’

Q: I’m not sure if we can get that in.
MARS: Ah, come on! We gotta!

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