Women were falling out of their seats when Jesse Seymour took to the stage for this year’s Bermuda Idol competition. The singer credits his girlfriend for his competition-winning track list.

He planned to woo the crowd with a tender ballad by John Legend; Sancha Durham gently said he needed something — to win.

They agreed on a shortlist of songs — by Al Green, Lenny Williams and Usher — went to John Woolridge’s Platinum Studios, and came up with a medley.

“We sat down for hours,” Mr Seymour told Lifestyle. “He came out with something spectacular. It just took off from there.”

His soulful composition wowed the audience and he was met with a standing ovation. It was a fitting cap to a remarkable event shared by Ms Durham and Mr Seymour only eight days before. Their first child, Maddox, was born on March 4. The 26-year-old said fatherhood only served to fuel his ambitions.

He admits it’s been challenging balancing studio time with his full-time job at Gosling’s and supporting Ms Durham as she cares for their son.

“She’s up with him nights and she’s tired and I want to give her a break, but I’m trying to take this to the next level,” he said.

“I don’t want to be average. I don’t want to be like everyone else and just sing until I’m a certain age and then just work for the rest of my life.

“I want to make this my bread and butter. I want this to be my way of living. I love what I do.”

Mr Seymour’s father, Greg Seymour, was once a popular singer with local jazz band Burning Ice.

“I guess it was just passed on to me,” the reggae-soul artist said. “I was actually very shy. I didn’t like to sing in front of people.”

He started singing with his family in church, and learnt to love it.

“It was me, my mom, my dad and my brother and I knew right after that I loved the stage,” he said. His first real opportunity to sing on his own presented itself while on a construction job in Dockyard in 2012.

Mr Seymour was working alongside Mitchell “Live Wires” Trott, and caught wind of his involvement in the annual Soca vs Reggae show.

“I told him, ‘Look, I can sing’,” he recalled.

Mr Trott laughed off the brag, but Mr Seymour insisted: “I said, ‘I’m dead serious, I can sing’. So, he sang something and I copied it — my way though.”

Mr Seymour was given two minutes of stage time.

“I’ll never forget it. I get there and it had to be about 3,000 or 4,000 people. It was my first time singing on a big stage event. I sang two songs; a Sanchez and a Christopher Martin. The crowd went crazy. It was so overwhelming that I felt like I wanted to throw up. They were screaming at me.

“When I’m on stage it’s a rush for me — it’s my element.”

That response helped him to get over his stage fright.

“Bermudians are the hardest crowd to please when it comes to entertaining,” he said. “You could be amazing and they’d [give a gentle golf clap] but the response I get from Bermudian crowds — I know if I can get that type of response from them I can get it anywhere.”

Since that first show, he’s been on the bill for almost every international concert and has produced his first single, although it’s yet to be released.

“I definitely have plans to get off island,” he said. “I feel like it’s really hard to get out of Bermuda as a Bermudian artist.

“I’m thankful to the promoters for continuing to allow me to be up on stage, because they really don’t have to add me now that they’ve passed the bill that says you don’t have to have local talent when you have international artists.

“It can be limiting in so many ways, but I feel the best way to get out there is to promote my stuff myself and get it on the radio, iTunes and SoundCloud.”

• See his band, Fire and Ice, at Bonefish Grill, every Thursday from 9pm to 12pm