Shawn Mendes is opening up about his hit collab with fellow Canadian popstar, Justin Bieber.
The “Wonder” singer had written the song three years ago – but only released it last month.
Talking to Entertainment Tonight, he reveals he wrote the song during a vulnerable moment when he was “feeling a lot [of] pressure [about] who I was in a relationship with and [people] wanting to push me into this box.”
“Three years later, I actually listen back to it and it makes me think of every single person who has Instagram or Twitter and every single person who is checking their Instagram every five minutes to see if people approve of the last thing they posted,” he explained. “It’s tough, because there is this [societal] pressure that everyone has and is putting on each other, and something that is so true and I don’t think is talked about enough is that the human condition is messy.”
“As babies, we fall and learn — that is how we don’t do something again and that is how we grow,” he added, “and I think as adults — I don’t know who decided that we are not allowed to keep learning or to fall… We got to be OK with being messy and falling, and if somebody falls, don’t push them down, don’t put your foot on top of them, help them up and teach them. I think that’s the way that culture can really be there for each other and I think it is a beautiful thing for that reason.”
Working with the Biebs helped him look at fame with a different perspective.
“He’s gone through a lot and I feel like he’s really come out on the other end in a place where he realizes how much of a blessing it is to do what we do for a living,” Shawn explained. “And on top of that, he also realizes that there is darkness and there’s heavy things that happen in our career. But the truth is that in any industry it’s the same thing. And I feel like from him, there’s this constant conversation of like, ‘I’m grateful, we’re blessed, look at what’s going on around us.'”
“And I even woke up this morning and I had a lot on my schedule and I reminded myself like, ‘Oh, all I’m doing is getting on a Zoom call to be like I made an album about things that I love. And talk about things that mean something to me,'” he reflected. “And really, comparatively to what I could be doing, I’m doing something that is from heaven.”
He also shared how freeing himself from others’ expectations helped him overcome a creative block he was struggling with.
“I had a big moment of anxiety and fear, and I felt like I wasn’t able to make music at the top of the year. And I think that was all coming from a place of fear, of people not liking the music I made, or fear of maybe not being able to make music better than I made in the past… and it was kind of choking me as a songwriter,” he revealed.
He says he gave himself some time to “figure out what was at the bottom of that.”
“And I just went in with the thing of like, hey, this is it. I showed up, I’m here to make music, I’m here to make art, and if it happens in the best way, it does, and if it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t….”
Freeing himself from the expectations allowed him to create his “favorite art that I’ve ever made” – his latest album, Wonder. He describes the 14-track LP as “a reflection of my life at the moment, or, rather, over the last six to seven months.”
