Gates, Gareth

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Gareth Paul Gates (born 12 July 1984), is a singer hailing from Bradford, England. He came second in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates overcame a stutter through the McGuire Programme, qualifying as a speech coach in 2004 [13]. He has sold over 3.5 million records.^[1]

Early life

Gareth was born in Bradford to father Paul Gates and mother Wendy Gates. He has three sisters, Nicola (born 1985), Charlotte (born 1991), and Jessica (born 1994) and grew up with cousin James (born 1986) who was fostered by the family. His parents regularly foster other children.^[2]

He and his sibling attended Dixons City Academy in West Bowling, Bradford where Gareth studied art and music at GCSE level.

Gates joined Bradford Cathedral choir at age nine.^[3] He was head chorister at Bradford Cathedral by the age of eleven, singing solo for the Queen when she visited in 1997.^[4] Gates achieved Grade VIII in piano, classical guitar and singing. He had gained a place at the Royal Northern College of Music before the finals of Pop Idol.^[5]

Singing career

Early career

Gates was runner-up on the first series of Pop Idol in February 2002. Despite not winning the competition, he was soon signed up with Simon Cowell's record label BMG.

Gates' first single, a cover of "Unchained Melody" entered the UK Singles Chart at number one. The single went double-platinum in the UK, and was voted 2002's The Record of the Year by ITV viewers. This was followed by another number-one single, "Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)". His third single, "The Long and Winding Road", a duet with Will Young, also reached number one. His fourth, "What My Heart Wants to Say" reached number five.

The now-defunct Smash Hits magazine dedicated 7 November 2002 as International Gates Day.

His debut album, What My Heart Wants to Say achieved first week sales of over a hundred thousand, and eventually earned double platinum status in the UK. It was the third biggest-selling album by a UK artist that year.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003, Gates sang the 2003 Comic Relief charity single, "Spirit in the Sky", with The Kumars. This was a number-one hit for two weeks. He also appeared in Comic Relief's Celebrity Driving School. Through Comic Relief, he became involved with Body and Soul, a charity that helps people affected by HIV and AIDS.

His next two singles "Sunshine" and "Say It Isn't So" reached numbers three and four respectively. His second album Go Your Own Way peaked at number eleven in the UK. It charted at number 1 and achieved platinum status^[6] in a number of Asian countries.

Gates won MTV Asia's award for Best International Male in 2003/4 and was awarded the same title by MTV China and MTV Taiwan.

"Say It Isn't So", a 2003 number-four single, proved to be Gates' last single release in the UK until April 2007. At the start of 2004 he did an arena tour of the UK, then continued to promote throughout Europe and Asia, before taking a break and training as a speech coach and course instructor with the McGuire Programme.

He also had a part in the film Seeing Double and promoted AIDS awareness through a charity concert to fifty thousand people with MTV in Indonesia.

Gates has sold just over three million music singles in the UK, including the second and sixth best selling singles in 2002 ("Unchained Melody", which sold 1.3 million, and "Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)", which sold 570,000) and the second best selling single in 2003 ("Spirit in the Sky", 550,000 copies).

Third album

In 2003 and 2004, it was reported that Gates was being dropped by his record company BMG. The reports, which also cited low sales of his second album and low concert ticket sales as reasons^[7][8][9], were denied by both Gates and the record company at the time. However, Gates was eventually dropped from the label two years later in April 2006 before the release of any new material^[10].

Gates later appeared in a television documentary for ITV1 called Whatever Happened to Gareth Gates?, which dealt with his experiences in the industry and his life outside it. The documentary was screened in December 2006, and confirmed a new record deal with UMTV (part of Universal) and a new album as well as showcasing snippets of the new material. An early preview of his new album was given at a secret gig on 29 November 2006 where he sang tracks titled "Afterglow", "Pictures of the Other Side", "Changes", "Angel on My Shoulder", "New Kid in Town", "Lost in You", "Can't Believe It's Over" and "19 Minutes".^[11] Gates had been working with writers such as Sacha Skarbek (James Blunt), Ricky Ross (of Deacon Blue fame), Gary Clark and Pete Gordeno, and new the album was produced by Martin Terefe, Jon Hall and Nick Whitecross.^[12]

Since 2004 Gates had also been working with singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke. Initial contact was apparently made through Lucie Silvas; Gates' regular acoustic guitarist, Graham Kearns, also worked with Tzuke and has writing credits with Gates on both albums. Appearing at Crewe's Limelight during Tzuke's October 2004 tour, Gareth sang backing vocals to a surprised audience on Tzuke's track "Bully" (from her album Secret Agent). A song Gates co-wrote with Tzuke, "Dark Days", appeared on Tzuke's 2007 album Songs 1.

On 30 March 2007 Gates appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, the first time he has participated in an interview for a mainstream TV chat-show since his speech improvement.

The first single from Gates' third album was "Changes" which was released on 9 April 2007. The single peaked at Number 14. His second single "Angel on My Shoulder" was released on 18 June, peaking at Number 22. Both singles remained in the UK top 40 for only one week. Gates' third album, Pictures of the Other Side, was released on 25 June and spent only two weeks on the UK album chart, entering at Number 23 before falling to Number 66 the following week, then dropping out of the chart altogether.

The song "Christmas And I'm Home" which was co-written with Judie Tzuke and was first premiered live by Gates in 2004 in Bradford, gained a commercial release in November 2008. Tzuke recorded the song with Israeli keyboard player Haim Cotton. Two versions of the song are available, as a charity single download or a physical CD single exclusively through www.cdbaby.com

Move into musical theatre

On 6 July 2008 Gates starred in the line-up for A Spoonful of Stiles & Drewe, a charity fundraiser to celebrate 25 years of musical theatre composers George Stiles & Anthony Drewe^[13]. Gates played the part of Robbie in a preview of a new musical entitled Soho Cinders. ^[14]

On 7 February 2009 in front of a packed audience at the "Adelphi Theatre", London, he took over the role of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat from Lee Mead, and continued to play the part until the final performance on May 30th 2009.

Gareth Gates confirmed on an interview with the Daily Mail that he has no plans to go back to the music scene in the near future, planning instead to concentrate on musical theatre ^[15].

In late June 2009 it was announced that Gates was to join the cast of the international 25th Anniversary touring production of Les Misérables in the role of Marius^[16].

Other entertainment appearances

In 2008, Gates appeared on ITV1's Dancing on Ice with skating partner Maria Filippov, finishing fourth, losing a place in the final to Zaraah Abrahams and dancing partner Fred Palascak.

On 7 September 2008, Gates played for England in Soccer Aid 2008 at Wembley in aid of UNICEF. He was substituted by Tom Felton. England beat The Rest of the World 4-3.

Gates played 'Prince Charming' in the pantomime 'Cinderella' at New Wimbledon Theatre, from December 2008 to January 2009.

Personal life and charity work

Gates was alleged to have had a liaison with glamour model Katie Price during the 2002 Pop Idol, while Price was 5 months pregnant with her first child Harvey from her previous relationship with footballer Dwight Yorke. Gates initially denied the rumours but finally admitted the relationship in 2003.^[17]

Gates lives in London with Suzanne Mole, a dancer whom he met at the Record of the Year awards in 2002. In October 2006, The People newspaper incorrectly reported that they had secretly married ^[18]. Gates and Mole got engaged on New Years Eve 2007 and were married on 18 July 2008 in a private ceremony for family and friends. The couple had their first child together on 6 April 2009, a girl called Missy. ^[19]

Gates is qualified as a speech coach and latterly course instructor with the McGuire Programme where he helps those with stammers such as his own. He was the youngest UK person to qualify as a speech coach with the programme. He co-led his first full course in February 2005 and in August 2006 instructed his first course single-handedly in Galway.^[20] He led his second at Bournemouth in November 2006, and continues to lead courses in the Uk and Ireland.

Gates is a patron of the HIV/AIDS charity Body and Soul and of the Bobby Moore Fund, ^[21] which supports research into bowel cancer. He also took part in the 2009 Cosmo Everyman campaign to raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer

Discography

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DVDs

1. Gareth Gates Live
2. Pop Idol Tour DVD

Tours and concerts

Tours

• Pop Idol Arena Tour 2002
• Will and Gareth Arena Tour 2003
• Go Your Own Way Arena Tour - UK and Asia 2004
• Dancing on ice tour 2008

Other notable concerts

• Private concert for the Prince of Brunei, January 2005
• MTV Asia AIDS Awareness Concert, Indonesia, December 2004
• Concert to open Louis Vuitton's first store in Shanghai, China, October 2004

Records and awards

Awards

UK

• The Record of the Year 2002: "Unchained Melody"
• Smash Hits Awards 2002: best male, best hair, best newcomer, most fanciable male
• Smash Hits Awards 2003: best male, best single ("Sunshine")
• Young Achievers Yorkshire 2002
• Special award for service to Yorkshire 2002
• OUT magazine awards 2003: best singer, best video ("Sunshine"), best performance at G-A-Y

Overseas

• MTV Asia: Best International Male 2003/2004
• MTV China: Best International Male 2003/2004
• MTV Taiwan: Best International Male 2003/2004
• TMF Belgium: Best International Pop
• MTV Taiwan: Inspiration to Youth
• G-Music (Taiwan): Best International Artist 2003
• Hit FM: Best single of 2003 (AOU)

References

External links

• Official website
• Official MySpace