La Serenissima

Santoli's

Austin, we heard you're headed back into the studio for your third album. Is this true?

I am. I'm actually headed to Europe to work with some amazing musicians who I've admired for decades...since I was a teenager. For "Three", this album is going to be completely different and not my typical sound. This album...this album will be everything you never thought you needed to hear. It's going to be slow and soothing and very, very personal. It's going to be a record that your grandparents will probably say that they grew up with and that's exactly what I'm going for.

Austin Moon was, for the most part, your typical popstar. He was tall, he was good looking, he was a guy who looked like he was plucked out of a shopping catalog by a random producer, given a song to sing and that song went straight up the charts because the producer paid people off for it to do just that. He wasn't the last part, but he was the first two. He was the popstar who was given pre-written songs that he personally, really didn't like to sing. The songs, of course, were hits though because every tween girl and their mothers liked them...or maybe it was the combination of the hot guy who was singing to them about breaking down walls and stealing hearts.

Austin Moon didn't think he was a typical popstar though. He knew exactly who he was. Austin Monica Moon, who never told anyone his middle name, was the son of Michael and Maria "Mimi" Moon, the owners of a very successful mattress chain in Miami, Florida. He was the son who, when he told his parents he wanted to be an overnight sensation and they told him he'd have a billion in one chance, worked even harder to be one. He was the son who ditched college to concentrate on his music career and the result was even better than he, his older brother, or his parents had even imagined. Deferring his education brought him an American Music Award, a People's Choice Award and several Teen Choice Awards. His older brother, Christopher, was more excited about the latter than the others...all because the trophies were surfboards, and Christopher loved to surf. His most recent honor was at the BMI Awards, when no one, not even his label, was aware that he penned the latest hit for Little Lights, an up and coming country band; and he used that to get his label to finally let him write and produce all of this new album.

Austin Moon was also the guy who was actually more into music than the media or his fans even knew. Just the way the sounds, the notes of a grand piano rolled, the ping of even a triangle and the lyrics made him feel. The slight touch of a B flat on ivory keys would put more ideas in his mind than how many cupcake recipes his fave shop in Miami had. If Austin could recall, the shop had over one hundred. He could dream up ballad after ballad with just three notes, and if you gave him a string of chords, there would be a contemporary piece in minutes. Not many of his fans, still the tweens, teens and their mothers, knew he was a gifted musician. They knew his family's names and what his favorite color was, thanks to all those tween centered magazines, but they probably didn't know how many hours he'd spent as a teenager himself listening to Mozart, Salieri, Wagner, Yo Yo Ma, Duke Ellington...or as he referred to the Gods of Music.

So, as Austin Moon popped the collar of his winter coat and braved the light snowfall in an almost eerie Venice, the sound of an old Italian opera echoed through the square and he found himself humming along to it as he walked from the conservatory and towards his favorite cafe for something chocolatey and warm. It was past ten at night on a Sunday. Since he had been in the Floating City for the past two weeks, he had learned fast that the ferries to the mainland shut down early on Sundays and that nothing was open past nine. He learned that the city almost shut down all business by eight and it took getting used to. He also learned that the main cafes, the ones with all the hype and glittering lights and too many tables that were always filled up with people weren't always the best. In fact, the hole in the wall cafes were his favorite.

Tiny lamps lined walkway after walkway, his shoes making the only noise around as he finally found the lights of the cafe he had found just a few nights earlier. It wasn't just any cafe either, this was Santoli's. He had found it by walking around in circles the other day searching and now, was the only cafe he sought out after a full day inside the school. Austin had sworn he walked around the entire island, but his mentor at the conservatory assured him he had not. Placing his bare hand on the cool door handle, Austin made his way inside and only started to take his beanie off when he saw two hands jut out from the counter at the end of the space. He smiled at the notion, thankful that this cafe was run by the kindest and possibly tiniest couple with the best hearts.