DETROIT (Marc Anthony Fans Website) - Latin pop star
Marc Anthony says he can handle all the singing that's required for his summer concert tour.
Fans, just don't ask him to dance - too much!
"I suck as a dancer," Anthony said in a recent interview ahead of the tour promoting his second English-language album, "Mended," which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts in May. He hits the road Saturday in Mansfield, Mass.
"I'm probably the worst dancer you ever met. I just jump around a lot, stomp my feet. I don't dance and sing at the same time; I'd have a breakdown."
But Anthony promised to have plenty of people on stage with him who can dance, as well as a flashy production to keep his audiences entertained.
"I learned a lot from the first tour," Anthony said of his last outing in support of the 1999 release "Marc Anthony," a triple-platinum success thanks to the Grammy -nominated hit single "I Need to Know." He also released another Spanish-language album, "Libre," prior to "Mended."
"What you can expect this time is a lot more of me -- a more confident me, a more complete me," he said. "I had so many questions to answer the first time around, people wondering whether I could go out and be any good or not. But this time I'm really anxious to work harder to get my point across and show people how passionate I am."
Dubbed "the reigning king of salsa" by the New York Times, Anthony originally planned to issue "Mended" along with "Libre" last fall, both on Sept. 28. In fact the album's first single, "Tragedy" -- co-written with Grammy-winning Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas -- already had been released and was being played on the radio.
But after the Sept. 11 attacks, Anthony thought it prudent to delay the English album until the spring.
'ALBUMS NEED TO BREATHE'
"It was just instant," recalled Anthony, who lives in New York City with his wife and their young son. "I said, 'There's no way on Earth that I'm gonna go around promoting a song named "Tragedy" right now' -- no song, no album, nothing. But it also gave us time to sit back and reassess our lives, reassess everything, reassess what music meant to us."
It also allowed Anthony and chief collaborator Cory Rooney to reassess "Mended," and to make a few changes that the singer felt were to the benefit of the album.
"Albums need to breathe," he said. "With my salsa albums, I'll finish a track and just sit on it for two or three weeks and hear it, and there are always ideas you don't think of at the time. When you have that luxury and that space, it makes for a more complete experience, musically.
So that's what we did with ('Mended'). I feel like it's a more mature album now."
Anthony said more dates may be added to the tour after its currently scheduled conclusion on Sept. 20 in Puerto Rico - where his family comes from.
But his immediate future plans include devoting himself to acting next year. He already has appeared in the films "Bringing Out the Dead," " Big Night " and "Hackers," and he starred in Paul Simon's short-lived Broadway musical "The Capeman."
Anthony said his musical commitments forced him to pass on roles in several films, including "Serendipity" and "Driving in Cars With Boys." But he added there is one film for which he would have dropped everything.
"'Spider-Man' - that one I would've given it all up for," he said. "I would've called the record company and said, 'Listen, you guys gotta back me on this one, if they call me to play Spider-Man.' That's one I would've started a revolution for, man."
