Shawn Mendes on his new album: “I’ve never felt so attached to a record”

He’s 19, grew up in Toronto and now has his own place there. He’s got a combined social media following of 57.5 million and just dropped his third album Shawn Mendes: The Album.

Why the album is self-titled:

“This is me. Also, I’ve never been part of the production as I have. Like, every note that was played on the piano to every guitar lick, to the sound of the snare.  

“I’ve never felt so proud, never felt so attached to a record. It’s like pulling at an emotion string that nothing else pulls at.” (Apple Music)

How he poured his anxiety into the ‘In My Blood’ track:

“It’s all about honesty, man. It’s something that I’ve always been paying attention to with other artists.

“It’s why I love Ed [Sheeran]so much and why I love [John] Mayer so much.

“I think I’ll only continue to be more and more honest as I get older.” (NME)

Coping with anxiety:

“About a year prior was my first time kind of experiencing anxiety and I wrote down in my notes the feelings of exactly what was going on because I wanted to make a song about that.

“And it came out, and friends and family and people and fans [were] saying, ‘This is what I needed. Thank you so much for being this honest.’

“After that, I was just so excited for everything ‘cause I took that same honest approach through all the music.” (Pandora)

Creating anthems:

“I was in England and Kings of Leon were headlining a festival and I was standing behind them playing air guitar to ‘Sex On Fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’.

“I was completely blown away by this anthemic electric guitar, big drums, the way the crowd reacted, that like put me on a high for, like, two months.” (GQ)

Blurring genres:

“I realised no one just listens to just rap or just Top 40. The reality is, everyone listens to everything, and that’s what I was focussing on when I was making this album.

“So you have a song like ‘In My Blood’ which is rock and then ‘Lost In Japan’ which is R&B. My thing was to just make great music.” (TMN)

On ‘Lost In Japan’:

“I sent it to John Mayer [to get feedback] he was pretty pumped up about that one.

“I’m very very proud of that song. As a musician, I’m probably most proud of that song.” (Zach Sang Show)

The day he wanted to do music for life:

“I was 15 years old and I went to Toronto. We were doing this thing where we were meeting the fans.

“I remember walking up from the subway and 200 people just turned around and started chasing me.

“I ran into a restaurant and they had to call security and close the door, I called my dad and said: ‘This is what I want to do for a living.’” (Today Show)