Matty Juniosa: 'Performances at Horseshoe Bar led me to Britain's Got Talent final'

Britain’s Got Talent finalist Matty Juniosa has told how performances in Glasgow’s Horseshoe Bar led to producers from the STV show approaching him “multiple times”.

The Filipino singer made history on last Saturday’s Britain’s Got Talent semi-final after becoming the only contestant to ever receive two Golden Buzzers from the judges, sending him straight to the final on May 30.

His performance of Aerosmith’s ‘Dream On’ has racked up more than 2.4 million YouTube views in just five days.

Matty joined Ewen Cameron and Cat Harvey on STV Radio’s Ewen and Cat at Breakfast on Friday for an exclusive chat and live performance in the studio.

He discussed his move to Scotland from the Philippines in 2022 to train at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) and how he performed in bars across the city while also working as a waiter.

Matty said: “You know the whole quotation of ‘People Make Glasgow’? It truly was the whole thing of what Glasgow is. I genuinely felt so welcome right away on the first day. Right away, it felt like family.

“And the accent! When Filipinos speak English, it’s quite strong too, with the Rs and the Bs and the Ps.

“So every day I’d wake and say, ‘I’m just in the Philippines’ – apart from the weather. There’s no sun in here, but you know what, the people are the light.”

Matty also explained why he chose to move to Glasgow rather than any other UK city.

He said: “I wanted to do something quite out of pocket, because it would’ve been so typical to go down south in London and all that.

“In terms of the schools I applied for in the whole world, Glasgow’s RCS was the most appealing to me, because I grew up watching James McAvoy, Ncuti Gatwa [and] David Tennant. These are legends from RCS – I was like, ‘This is where I should be’. And I wanted to meet [Glasgow pub singers] Robert and May Miller.

“[The Britain’s Got Talent producers] actually approached me multiple times because they kept finding videos of me at Horseshoe Bar.”

Ewen and Cat at Breakfast airs every weekday from 6am until 10am on STV Radio.