10 Famous musicians who started out behind the scenes – You will be surprised to see this! (With Pictures)

5. Bruno Mars

Today Bruno Mars is one of the best-selling musicians of all time with five of his songs counted as best-selling singles of all time. But when he first moved to L.A from Hawaii to pursue a music career, record companies weren’t jumping at the chance to sign him. He signed a deal with Motown in 2004 that ended up going nowhere, and he was dropped from the label less than a year later. Mars still wanted to be an artist himself, but ended up having to sell his songs to others in order to stay in L.A.

He wrote and produced songs for Travie McCoy, Adam Levine, Brandy, and Sean Kingston before finally getting his own artist deal at Atlantic Records in 2009. After serving as a guest vocalist on hit songs like Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire”, Mars finally released his debut album Doo Wops and Hooligans in 2010 with the lead single “Just The Way You Are”. He’s since won two Grammy’s and his Superbowl Halftime show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2014 was the second most watched of all time.