Bruno Mars' birthday
Few people know that singer and songwriter Bruno Mars, born October 8th, 1985, in Honolulu, Hawaii, was named Peter Gene Hernandez upon birth. The name Bruno actually originates from his father, who called his son that nickname because he looked like professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino. Mars’ came from a musical family, where he was exposed to all kinds of music and even joined the family band, The Love Notes, when he was four years old. He attracted attention for his renditions of Elvis Presley’s songs, being called, “Little Elvis,” and became a well-known figure in his native state’s entertainment business during his high school years as he continued to perform even after the family band dissolved.
Bruno Mars moved to Los Angeles in 2003, after graduating high school, to pursue a career in music. He adopted his stage name and landed a music publishing deal at Westside Independent in 2005. After some setbacks and almost giving up because he couldn’t manage to get signed on as an artist, Mars ended up co-founding the production team The Smeezingtons, together with record producer Philip Lawrence. The pair were the authors of various successful singles, both for Mars himself and other artists.
In 2010, Mars at last released his debut studio album Doo-Wops & Hooligans, which included the single, “Just the Way You Are,” which turned him into an international success and eventually earned him a Grammy Award. Other popular singles within that album were “Grenade,” “The Lazy Song” and “Marry You”. Most of the songs in the record achieved top positions in international charts, making him one of the best-known artists of that year. Mars debuted his second studio album, Unorthodox Jukebox, in 2012, at number one on the Billboard 200 and ended up selling over six million copies worldwide. The record later won him a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. In 2013, he embarked on the Moonshine Jungle Tour and also had a concert residency in Las Vegas, called Bruno Mars at The Chelsea.
In 2014, Bruno headlined the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show, making him the first person under 30 to do so in over a decade. The year 2016 was a big one in Mars’ career: he released his third studio album, 24K Magic, which went on to receive seven Grammy Awards (amongst which were Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year) and, in February, Bruno appeared alongside Beyoncé and the band Coldplay in the Super Bowl 50 halftime show, a performance that became the most watched halftime show in the event’s history. In 2017, he entered the Guinness World Records for being the “first male artist to achieve three 10-million-selling singles.”
Throughout his career, Bruno Mars has collaborated and contributed to other artists’ albums, such as, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Sean Kingston, Mark Ronson, and many more. In February 2021, Mars came together with American rapper Anderson .Paak to form the band Silk Sonic. Their first album, An Evening with Silk Sonic, was released in 2021 and was an instant success, also earning the duo several Grammy Awards. The following year, Silk Sonic had taken up a concert residency, titled An Evening with Silk Sonic, at Park MGM. To this day, Bruno remains one of the best-selling and highest-grossing musical artists of this era.
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