We are juggling three different names, but don’t get mixed up. Jewls Verse is the recently revamped, healthier and perhaps more sensible version of Ozzy Lino, known mostly as one of resident singers on quirky, local TV programme Red. Back then, Lino was a big guy with a bear-like build, a skinhead and cocky sunglasses. Now, the singer/songwriter is barely recognisable. Apart from losing a lot of weight, he grew back his curls and sports a totally different look portraying a somewhat more placid and collected image which reflects itself in the title of his second album, Taking It Easy. What definitely did not change is his inborn love for music.

“People dance to music. They don’t dance to painting or sculpture or while reading a book or watching a film. There’s something amazing about music. It can touch the soul.” Jewls Verse has no reservations about his passion for his singing career. Most of us can quote song lyrics more easily than we quote great literature, and we find those lyrics deeply personal.” His album launch took place only last Saturday in three different venues, starting with a show in Baystreet, then moving on to Fat Harry’s Pub in Bugibba, and finishing off at the beach at Paradise Bay Lido.

“I’ve tried to be honest with this album,” Lino says, “The songs are written from my life experiences. From the frustrations of trying to make it as a musician, to the life-changing event of the birth of my daughters.” The last couple of years have been both a struggle and a joy for the singer. Work on this album started quite some time ago, but when producer Dave Goodman passed away, all work had to stop. “Dave was one of the producers for bands like The Sex Pistols, as well as being an accomplished musician himself,” Lino explains. A few months later, Lino was playing in a hotel in Mellieha, when Dave’s wife Kathy turned up and, upon listening to some of the new songs he had written, invited him back to the studio to resume recording.

“The title of the album, Taking It Easy, is not so much how I am, or how things are, but how things could be – a philosophy saying that we don’t need to run around so fast and take everything so seriously. Let’s enjoy life, smell the roses, enjoy the music,” Lino says. His new stage name came up while he was writing Do You Remember?, one of his new songs. “I was so happy with the sound that I said to myself, this song needs verses like jewels and then I wrote that down “verses like jewels”. And that became “Jewls Verse.”

Lino was born in Malta but moved to Australia with his family when he was nine. In 1996, he came back for a holiday and spent a few years moving back and forth between both countries until finally settling here in 2001. People inevitably started calling him Ozzy because of his Australian accent and manners. When he would appear in pubs and clubs he would be introduced as “Aussie Lino” or “Lino from Oz”, or other such names. Then a pub in Bugibba wrote him up as “Ozzy Lino”. “I liked it. It looked better written too, so I just started using that name. It made sense at the time,” Lino says, “However, times change and I felt that for a bigger market, the nickname “Ozzy Lino” wasn’t cutting it.”

“As far as the image goes, I guess the big belly, bald head and glasses were just comfortable back then. I’ve lost a lot of weight now, and feel much healthier. As for the bald thing, well, I just stopped shaving my head!”

Jewls Verse believes this to be a mature album, which should have a broad appeal. “I wouldn’t classify the album as pop music, but I think that everyone’s going to find something in it to enjoy.” Influences for this album include various artists that Lino has been listening to, ranging from rock bands Muse and Coldplay to pop music’s enfant terrible Robbie Williams. Lino is proud of having managed to turn his passion into a full-time career through which he is able to support his family and himself. Singing is what he wanted to do since the tender of age of four years, when he was already enrolled in the Johann Strauss School of Music in Valletta, after which he joined the Green Valley Young People’s Choir in Australia, with which toured around the world and shared the stage with many big Australian artists. “I’m very lucky to be doing what I love to do,” he says, beaming, “Now my first daughter is five and I’m proud to say she can really hold a tune.”

Apart from travelling with the Australian choir, Lino considers people’s feedback to be another of the highlights in his career. “It’s very warming to know that people are listening to the singer, as well as the song. It makes it seem like a vocation, rather than a job.” The singer also tried his luck at participating in the Malta Song for Europe, however his view is that the Eurovision is taking a radically different path nowadays: “Without disparaging anyone, the quality of the song isn’t really as important as it used to be. Perhaps this is the MTV effect, where the image is almost more important than the music itself. I still think that it’s a good competition to enter, and I work with younger talent who aspire to that, but I’m not sure if my music fits into what the Eurovision has become now.”

Does he believe local artists stand a chance of making it abroad? “I think it’s a great scene here in Malta; the country is teeming with talent. I do think local artists can make it internationally, but it requires talent, dedication and lots and lots of hard work. Oh yeah, and luck.”

Having a worldwide audience is of course every artist’s dream. Lino and his management team are working hard to expand his fan base beyond Malta and to generate a presence internationally. “I love music, I really do. It’s my passion. As long as I can do this, I’m happy. And the more people I can reach, the happier that will make me.”

What is most important for Jewls Verse as a performer is to enable others to share his own love for singing, and transcend the barrier between the artist and audience.

“When the crowd is facing you and singing back the words of your songs, there’s something magical there.

“It’s not artist and audience anymore, it’s everyone together, everyone sharing the same emotion and joy,” he concludes.