For this week's In Conversation we sat down with Shawn Mendes to talk personal happiness over external achievements, challenges of fame, mental health, and self-discovery in the public eye.
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00:00I know exactly what I am. And also, I have no idea. I'm figuring that out, just like everyone else.
00:05So it's just kind of a hilarious concept in general for people to be like, this is what I am.
00:11It's restrictive. Then you don't let yourself become something better than you could have ever imagined, maybe.
00:17Hi, I'm Nick, and I'm joined by Shawn Mendes for the latest in Enemies in Conversation series.
00:30How's it going today?
00:32Good, man. Happy to be here.
00:34How does it feel to be back on the promo circuit?
00:37It feels, it feels. It feels a lot. I don't know. It feels different, I think.
00:46I think this time around, just like the music itself, asks for an entirely different environment and energy.
00:55I just even noticed, even just walking into the room with all of you here, after last night.
01:02Yeah, I think you guys just have a different energy around me because of the music. So that's cool. I like that.
01:08You've been previewing the album, a series of intimate gigs where people go in, probably just knowing two songs, they don't know the album.
01:15What made you want to do it that way?
01:20I think it felt like the album was such a, it felt like it was such a whole, like a cohesive piece,
01:30that I felt like in order for people to really understand the individual songs, they had to see the whole picture.
01:38And also just like, something I always wanted to do and have never done before, and it felt like a really great album to do it.
01:45A lot of it's stripped down, a lot of it's acoustic. So yeah, I thought to myself, this would be like, for instance, if John Mayer,
01:53when he was, if he was putting out a new album, he's like, I'm going to go play it, kind of acoustic, stripped down, top to bottom.
01:58I would be personally really excited to see that show. So yeah.
02:02What was the starting point for the album? Was there one kind of song that sparked it? One musical idea?
02:07There, Isn't That Enough, which was the first song we put out, which is kind of like that Crosby, Stills and Nash energy.
02:16I think there was a, there was a big transition for me because a lot of this album was just about reminding me that,
02:22that I know how to sit with a guitar in my hand and just sing in a room of people.
02:26And it wasn't this entirely hyper-processed, hyper-edited, you know, polished, produced thing.
02:34It was just like reverting back to basics. And, you know, over the last couple of years, I, even just with friends I made and stuff,
02:42like I've played music for 10 years, but actually like in a room with like five people, I never would pull my guitar out
02:48or never would sit and sing or play piano because I was so insecure of messing up.
02:53And so over the course of the two years, I started just like doing that more and more around people I loved and it became more normal.
03:00And then in the studio, we were just like, there was this kind of breakthrough moment where we were sitting there singing this song
03:07and we're like, just put one mic in front of us and let's sing it live, top to bottom. And that was that song.
03:13And so for all its imperfection, it made something really special.
03:20You know, you captured a moment in time, which I think doesn't happen when you're producing something to pieces.
03:26You know, you get sonic perfection, but you might not get the heart that comes through that captured imperfection.
03:34So that moment in particular was really, really profound for me because I was like, all right, I'm going to do this.
03:42I'm going to do this a little differently and actually inspired a few of the songs to work like that.
03:46Actually, I'd say three of my favourite songs on the album were just recorded with one mic live.
03:52Was picking the right collaborators important because you were wanting to go back to basics?
03:57Did you need the right people around you to feel comfortable doing that?
04:00Absolutely everything. I think a great producer is not only someone who can make the song sound great,
04:08but it's someone who knows how to get the best out of the artist they're working with.
04:12And that was my main concern.
04:17There was no one in the world I could have made this album with other than the guys I did,
04:20because they are some of my best, closest friends.
04:24And I needed to be around people that I felt safe around, you know.
04:29And just like, you know, we can mess up and we can not make a song.
04:34We can spend three days struggling and then call it at the end of the day because it didn't matter if something came through,
04:41because we also just enjoyed spending time together.
04:44And I think that type of energy creates the intimacy that the album has, you know.
04:50What kind of atmosphere do you like in the studio?
04:52A lot of candles, the lights low.
04:56To be honest, I just like it when it's low pressure,
05:01when everyone is kind of simultaneously surrendered to the fact that whether or not a good song comes today is not entirely up to us.
05:12You know, we can show up with all our tools and everything we know,
05:15but the truth is, is that songs come when they want.
05:19And you just kind of got to be there to catch them and work them when they do, so.
05:24As I understand it, the first song that you wrote for the album was Who I Am.
05:27Yeah.
05:28And on that song you sing, I don't really know who I am right now.
05:30Yeah.
05:31Was making this album part of figuring out who you are?
05:33Absolutely. I think it's, there was a lot of time.
05:39I made the album actually quite quick.
05:40It was six months, maybe even less.
05:42We actually wrote and produced it.
05:44And, but it was two and a half years of creating from within, you know.
05:51Yeah, I had a really emotional kind of experience when I sang the album top to bottom for the first time,
05:58just because I almost had this out of body experience where I was witnessing how all these songs were connecting to the last two years of life
06:05and how the things I was hoping for, like, and who I am were very true in that moment.
06:12And all the seeds that I planted two years ago and hoping that there would be more love and more laughter and more life that was happening
06:20was actually happening in the moment.
06:22And so, yeah, it really, it really has been my medicine in so many ways.
06:29Like, it really has.
06:31Another, one of the great songs from the album, The Mountain, you spoke about it at the show last night.
06:35Yeah.
06:35That was one that was very important to you.
06:38What inspired that song and what's the kind of story behind it?
06:42It's not, maybe it's not for everyone, but for me, I have quite an existential, like, place I like to go to sometimes.
06:49And I just, I had a ton of questions just about a lot of different things.
06:53And I think it was really just a moment for me to tell my side of the story and to just claim myself instead of having other people do it in a way that they wanted to.
07:10And just kind of write back at some articles.
07:11Usually, I don't really care what people write about in articles and stuff, but there was a couple that I was just like, this is bullshit.
07:17I need to write a song just to kind of, you know, and it was empowering for me because the end line at every phrase is like, so call it what you want.
07:26Ultimately, you can say it's this and say it's that and say that I'm this and say that I'm that.
07:32But I know what I am.
07:34So you can call it what you want all day long.
07:38That was an empowering phrase for me to get to.
07:40Yeah, some of the lyrics in the song, you can say I'm too young, you can say I'm too old.
07:44You can say like girls or boys, whatever fits your mold.
07:47Was it, you talk about being empowering, was it empowering to kind of sing about something in what seems like quite a playful, nonchalant way?
07:52It's kind of you being like, say what you want.
07:54I know what I am.
07:55Exactly, exactly.
07:57There's so much pressure on us to know everything and us to be so clear on everything.
08:03And also, I know exactly what I am.
08:07And also, I have no idea.
08:09I'm figuring that out just like everyone else.
08:11So it's just kind of a hilarious concept in general for people to be like, this is what I am.
08:19It's restrictive.
08:20Then you don't let yourself become something better than you could have ever imagined, maybe.
08:26I feel like everyone's trying to figure themselves out in their 20s, but just very few people have to do it with the glare that you also have.
08:32I appreciate you saying that.
08:34I agree.
08:35And I was talking about this with a friend last night, actually.
08:38And yeah, I think, you know, it can be like the pressure of discovering yourself in the public eye can be like really annoying and frustrating,
08:49or it can be an opportunity to do it in a way that hopefully inspires other people to be OK with being confused about things, you know?
09:01Do you feel like you've found a balance between being a private person and being in the public eye, or is that a kind of constant negotiation?
09:06Does it change?
09:07It's a constant negotiation.
09:08Yeah.
09:09Yeah, it really depends on the day.
09:12And I think, yeah, because I've gone through swings where I'm just like deleted social media and deleted.
09:18I've pretended that no one can see me.
09:20And that wasn't right.
09:22And then I've gone through places where all I can think about is what people think or how they see me.
09:26And that wasn't right.
09:27So, yeah, it's a constant relationship.
09:31You know, like anything.
09:32Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like previewing the album in such an intimate way, having that kind of really deep connection with fans is a nice way of kind of like coming back on your own terms, isn't it?
09:42Yeah. Yeah.
09:43It felt really important just to be like it felt really important for me to write an album from this place and also just exist from this place, because like even right now, I just recognise how much easier this is for me.
10:00Because there's nothing I have to try to be.
10:04There's no perception or persona I have to withhold right now.
10:08I can just sit here and speak as as I am.
10:11And that is such an easier existence.
10:13And I really wanted to set myself up for that.
10:15You know, the album is really raw musically and lyrically.
10:21Were there any songs you were apprehensive about sharing with the world?
10:24I mean, you spoke really movingly last night.
10:26One of the songs on the album, Heart of Stone, is about a friend of yours who's no longer with us.
10:29Yeah. Yeah.
10:31I think, to be honest with you, this was the first time where it was very clear to me, regardless of whether it was scary, if a song had to be on the album or not.
10:45It was very obvious.
10:46One song in particular was actually Who I Am.
10:48And that was just because so much time had passed since I wrote it that I almost felt like, oh, no, I don't know if I agree with that.
10:56But I knew that ultimately because of my team reminding me how important it is to just give the whole story, you know.
11:04And so this time, more than any other time, it felt like there was a place for every song and it was very easy to know.
11:13What made you want to cover Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah?
11:17I mean, he's a Canadian icon.
11:19I was just in Montreal and there's a huge mural of him in the city centre and I was like, wow, yeah, it really brought home to me how big he is for Canadian musicians.
11:25Yeah. I mean, and I've watched so many interviews of him.
11:28He went and he lived as a monk in a Japanese monastery in Los Angeles.
11:34And I was like, in another world, that was like probably something I would have tried to do.
11:40And, you know, it's great.
11:41Like, I watched this interview and in the interview, he's like, well, you know, they're like, what have you learned after, you know, how many years being at the monastery?
11:47And he's like, I've learned that whatever I'm looking for, I'm never going to find and it's already here.
11:54And he's like, I might not have needed to go to the monastery to learn that.
11:57And I remember watching it being like, cool, noted.
12:00But Hallelujah was a song that I gravitated towards a lot as a kid and I just sang it a ton.
12:08I posted covers of it online and YouTube when I was like 15, 16 and actually never really paid attention to the lyrics because I never really could grasp the concept of what he was reckoning with, which was the idea of God and spirit.
12:29And at 26, after going through my own kind of relationship with that, those lyrics just felt so resonant and it just felt like the right time.
12:40Like I said, we were in the studio, the album was basically done and I was in the studio and I just had this overwhelming feeling that I had to do a cover of that song.
12:51So we put the harmonium on the ground, we set up a mic and I just sang three takes of it and that was what made it to the album.
12:57And so it was really just trusting these gut feelings that would come up.
13:02And yeah, to me, that's probably, if not one of, it is the greatest song ever written.
13:10And I'll always feel that way.
13:13You played the harmonium on stage when you did Hallelujah last night and you spoke about learning to play the harmonium and how that was important in your creative journey.
13:23What did learning that new instrument, because it's an instrument that most people probably haven't ever seen played before.
13:27It kind of looks a bit like an organ.
13:28It does, yeah.
13:29Why did you gravitate towards that instrument and how did that help with this creative process?
13:33Yeah, I mean, to be honest, a lot of the stuff that I started to sing with it at first was like traditional kirtan music.
13:41So it's songs where I'm singing in Sanskrit, not even in English.
13:45And I think learning a song in a different language that in India, they use all these different types of semitones and tritones and it's totally different.
13:57It kind of just got me out of my head and into a place of like, this feels nice, you know, and I did that for a long time.
14:06And then I started to kind of just wean off and to do my own version of it.
14:10And it was just a really powerful tool.
14:12Like I wasn't sitting at a piano making a pop song.
14:15I was sitting, I was singing an old song, 10,000 plus years old, and just completely took me out of my own head, you know.
14:25Does it feel like the way you spoke last night and also the way you're speaking today, is it fair to say with this album, you've kind of tried to make music for you again and not worrying about what people think a Shawn Mendes song should sound like?
14:35I think that's super fair to say.
14:38I also really think that like people make their best music when it's true and honest.
14:45And I think it's really obvious when people make music for everyone else.
14:49And I think you can get a good song or a great song even out of that.
14:54But the songs that I personally feel most connected to, it's obvious the writer was just writing from a place of authenticity, not for everybody else, you know.
15:05I think fans can always tell where when it's totally authentic and when it's a song that's maybe a bit more kind of...
15:10Yeah, everyone's bullshit radar is much higher than it used to be these days.
15:14Like you can't really get away with, you can't claim to be honest and then you have this much room, you know.
15:21Do you ever look at your songs on Genius?
15:24Because I mean, sometimes if I'm like doing research and interview, I go in there and some of the citations are incredibly detailed.
15:30And the theories are like...
15:32Yeah, I never looked at those. I got to go look.
15:33Maybe you don't.
15:34Okay.
15:35But honestly, some fans, it's like they're detectives these days.
15:38Yeah.
15:39They'll read so much into like, you know, what seems like, you know, a kind of throwaway phrase.
15:43And I think a big part of for me was also just like getting back to a place where like, for me, my favourite art is when the person who's created it really trusts me to understand it.
15:59They're not spoon feeding me something because they think I don't get it.
16:03It's really like, you got it.
16:05Like, and this might be different.
16:07This might be complex.
16:08This might be off.
16:09But like, I trust you to dissect it and digest it in a way that you will.
16:15And I think for me, that was this album in a lot of ways, too, was just like writing from a place that was like, I trust everyone to, you know, receive it.
16:26And I trust them to get it, you know.
16:28What are your musical reference points for making the album?
16:31Because it's kind of, I would say it's a folky album with some country, there's a lot of mandolin on there.
16:35Sure.
16:36Yeah, it's definitely, I think mainly it was really inspired by a lot of music from the 70s.
16:44It was just like 70s classic rock, like James Taylor, Crosby, Stills and Nash, John Denver.
16:50Yeah, I was just listening to so much Joni Mitchell, just songwriters, Bob Dylan.
16:59I never listened to Bob Dylan.
17:01And just listening to these writers just write about real things.
17:06And it almost felt like strip things down.
17:09And there was just a different kind of feeling in music in the 70s that I think was really reflective of the times.
17:18And I just really resonated with it.
17:21So yeah, a lot of that type of music.
17:22Is it hard to kind of recreate the warmth of those 70s records in the studio these days?
17:27Because obviously, like technology's kind of moved on, which in some ways makes things, you're talking about perfection,
17:31but maybe it can make things a bit more clinical.
17:33It can, it does.
17:34Absolutely.
17:35I think it feels almost impossible to recreate that warmth, to be honest.
17:39It's like, but I think it has a lot to do with just bravery of writing and lyricism.
17:49And yeah, like I think people who, I think so many people are doing great stuff like that today.
17:55But I think Zach Bryan's a great example of someone who's just released that, the grip of perfection.
18:01And it's coming through as such heart in a gorgeous way, you know.
18:05Something that went really well last night was Heavy.
18:07Yeah.
18:08What's that song about?
18:09How did it come together?
18:10Yeah.
18:12It kind of feels like one of those songs that you've known forever.
18:14Do you know what I mean?
18:15Yeah.
18:15It's got that kind of real classic feel to it.
18:16Good, good.
18:18I think kind of like what I said last night was just, it really was this, and I know a lot of people are like this,
18:29and maybe some people don't struggle with this, but it felt like for me, for too long, I was just for,
18:37and I was the only person in control of this.
18:39I was just carrying the weight of everything on my own shoulders.
18:43And I believe that no one could understand and no one could help me and no one could, you know, support because they don't get it.
18:51And honestly, that type of belief just like made me feel so isolated and alone.
18:59And when I started to finally just like open up to the people in my life who love me and who wanted to support me,
19:07like I just realized like, oh, this is real vulnerability.
19:11Like vulnerability is not like, hey, I'm being vulnerable.
19:14I'm going to talk about it on camera, in front of us.
19:17Like vulnerability is doing it when you don't want to, and it's not on your terms and it's really like uncomfortable.
19:23And doing that with my friends and family, like slowly just started to just unravel me into a puddle.
19:32And that was a moment there.
19:35I think what's beautiful is actually the album and that song, you're going to hear, you hear more backing vocals than ever from people that are not me.
19:45And I'm just realizing right now, actually metaphorically, it really shows you like I actually needed support to even be in the studio singing those songs.
19:53You'll hear Eddie Benjamin's vocal and Mike Sabbath's vocal so many times throughout the record, because as we were recording it,
20:02they were literally right here and right here singing it with me.
20:05And that type of support, it would change everything to me, you know.
20:10Do you feel able to put less pressure on yourself now?
20:13Because I mean, on one hand, you probably want this album to do as well as it possibly can.
20:17Yeah, no, absolutely.
20:19Honestly, I'm so exhausted of caring so much about, you know, things working out in a way that the world deems successful.
20:31I'm tired of that because following down that perception being the most important thing just led me to the most depressed and exhausted I ever was in my life.
20:43So I not even say this in like a jaded, I hope I don't sound jaded.
20:46Honestly, I just I really care about being happy and I really care about being myself.
20:52And like, of course, I want it to do well.
20:54Of course, I want people to love it.
20:56But I definitely don't want people to love it and it to do well at the sacrifice of my happiness and my sense of self.
21:02So that's kind of where I'm at with that.
21:05All your fans who were at the gig last night seeing you happy on stage must have been really a relief from them after what, you know, what happened with having to cancel your previous tour because of your mental health issues.
21:15The fact that you seem to be enjoying yourself on stage would be amazing for them to see.
21:19Yeah, I remember halfway through the show asking myself, like, something's wrong, like, because I'm like, this feels easy.
21:27This feels not stressful.
21:28I'm not panicking.
21:29I feel at ease.
21:31I feel like I feel really grounded about what's happening.
21:34I don't feel like I'm on some planet and they're on another planet.
21:37I feel like there's a bunch of people in front of me enjoying their evening and I'm here enjoying my evening and this is all just happening.
21:43And like, I actually I got off stage and I went straight into a therapy call because I was like, I was confused by that sensation.
21:55So I was so used to connecting anxiety and panic and nervousness with greatness.
22:03And I think that's something that we're taught in the society.
22:06And I really, in my own self, want to shift that.
22:10You can feel it can be easeful and it can be nice and it can be calm and still be great.
22:16Yeah, that kind of torture genius trope is really damaging.
22:19Damaging. And it's so intertwined with our culture that we don't even realise how it's writing our own story for us.
22:27You spoke on stage last night about back in 2021, you felt really lonely on stage.
22:32Was that something that had you felt that way for a while or did it kind of gradually crept up on you?
22:36I think it gradually crept up.
22:38You know, I started playing in theatres and started playing with just an acoustic guitar and things felt much more connected.
22:45And then as things got bigger and bigger and bigger, I just felt physically further from people, but also emotionally further.
22:53I felt like, oh, so I'm on this pedestal or something and this doesn't make sense.
23:00I don't know why.
23:01And I felt far and distant.
23:03And John Mayer said this great thing in an interview.
23:06He said his dream is to have the stage be level with the crowd.
23:12And obviously the stage is never going to be level.
23:15But metaphorically, I thought that made so much sense.
23:18It's like there should be no difference between that connection.
23:22And I just always loved that.
23:23I thought that was really smart.
23:25Does the idea of doing an arena tour again appeal to you?
23:28Or would you feel as though you're not in that space now?
23:32To be honest, I think there is always a side of me that wants to go and play and rip a huge show and be like so much energy and so fun.
23:46And I'm not going to allow my fear of the past control the future in that sense.
23:53So if that urge starts to come back, I'm not going to fight it.
23:58Yeah, yes, yes.
24:00I'll let that play out.
24:02What does success feel like to you at this point?
24:05That's a great question, man.
24:06I think it's something I think about every day.
24:10And I think success to me feels like any type of, you know, like if we talk about this interview, for instance,
24:24when I leave the room and I walk out of this room and I go, hey, I was really just myself in that interview.
24:30I wasn't trying to please him.
24:31I wasn't trying to please the camera.
24:32I wasn't trying to please anyone.
24:34I was just like being honest.
24:36That's an extremely successful thing because I think it's tough to do that as a human.
24:42I don't claim to do that all the time.
24:44I think we're always constantly like sensitive and aware of everyone and, you know, trying to please and all that.
24:51So success for me is just like, was that authentic?
24:54And after that, did people enjoy it?
24:59And then after that, all the other things.
25:02And a dream of mine would be able to be completely authentic and for it to be a number one song and there to be, you know, crowds of hundreds of thousands of people.
25:12Like, that's the dream.
25:13And I'm going to hold on to that.
25:15They can be one, you know.
25:17At what point did you realise that it really was your urge to be a people pleaser?
25:21Because I feel like a lot of us are like that.
25:23Yeah, I think it's so normal to be a people pleaser.
25:27And I think just as it's almost like as time of your young and and, you know, when I was young, there was I remember so many like different adults and people being, oh, you're so mature when you say this and when you do that.
25:41And that's so great.
25:42And that validation feels really good, obviously, as a kid.
25:45And so you want to kind of keep that persona up of what people think about you being.
25:50I remember a really big one for me was like being really nice.
25:54And it wasn't until I was like off tour and I was with a really close group of friends.
26:01And one day they came up to me and they're like, dude, you being this nice guy all the time is annoying.
26:07Like, we don't want that.
26:10We just want your truth.
26:11And I remember that hit me so hard because I realized like even when I wasn't actually feeling nice, I was being I was acting nice, you know, and just little by little, I think I've just let go of those things.
26:23I don't think you have to be a good person and be a nice person, but I don't think you need to constantly please.
26:30Do you still feel do you feel that you're mature for your age now?
26:35It's interesting that people often said that about you.
26:37I guess you worked from such a young age that would make you mature.
26:40Maybe I was maybe I was more sensitive as a kid that I picked up on emotional things.
26:44But like, I think, yeah, when you're 15 and you travel the world and you start to be to do what I did, you grow up quickly, you know, you know, no matter who you are.
26:55So, yeah, I owe a lot of that if that maturity is there, it's a lot of it to that.
27:00If you could go back and give advice to a 15 year old self, what would that advice be?
27:04Honestly, I wouldn't say a thing to him.
27:06He had to go he had to go through some of that stuff to learn.
27:10And advice that he just he needed to hit some walls in order to figure out where he the actual course was.
27:19You know, we spoke about this album being like you figure out who you are.
27:22That's a big part of what you were doing on this album.
27:25What do you kind of aspire to be at this point?
27:27What's the what's the goal for the future?
27:29Not even as a musician, as a person.
27:31That's a beautiful question.
27:33I really just aspire at 26.
27:37I'm sure this will change because it has.
27:40But I really love to be around people who I can tell are really like themselves and they're in their body and they're just like it feels like they've taken the time to really love on themselves and and be honest.
27:53And that's what I aspire to be.
27:57And I think that will translate in a career sense and in a personal relationship sense.
28:02You know, are you quite good at reading people's energies at this point?
28:05Because you've met so many people.
28:07I'm an energy reader.
28:10I don't even know how to answer that question, to be honest.
28:13Who says who am I to say I'm good at that?
28:16But you know, which kind of the sort of people you want to surround yourself?
28:18Yeah. Oh, that. Yeah, absolutely.
28:20I know who I want to surround myself with.
28:21You know, yeah.
28:24Why did you decide to name the album Just Sean?
28:26That's a good question.
28:27I was at the album titles and there was there was a lot.
28:30And obviously I already have a self-titled album, Sean Mendes.
28:32And it felt really sincere, like the only people in my life who call me Sean are the people who are closest to me, you know?
28:44Well, a lot of people in my close family call me Shani, but I thought that wasn't going to be the best title.
28:49And although I did bring it up and I was like, yeah, I just I think I think, like I said,
28:56it's that thing of I think people will get it, even you ask me that question.
28:59I think you totally get why I've called it Sean.
29:01It just it's the stripped back kind of me before all of the everything else.
29:08Why was Why Why Why the right song to kind of come back with?
29:10Why is that the first single?
29:14Whether it's the right song or not is something I don't know.
29:17But I think that was a song that I wanted to put out just because I felt like it addressed a lot of things.
29:23And it did it in a way that had no period at the end.
29:26It was kind of just an open ended thing.
29:29It was for more to be discussed about it, you know?
29:33I mean, you address the tour that you cancelled in those lyrics, which it feels like it's saying I'm coming back and I'm not hiding anything.
29:40I'm just going to be completely, completely me.
29:43And I didn't even plan on that or addressing anything.
29:45It just felt that song in particular felt really natural to do so, you know?
29:49How do you feel that the music industry has changed in the 10 years you've been doing it?
29:53I mean, I always forget that like Vine was where you kind of popped off and that's not there is no Vine anymore.
29:58No. In some ways, I feel like an old man in this industry.
30:04And then in other ways, I feel like it's still really similar.
30:08You know, the advice I give myself all the time is just like, don't focus on what everyone's doing.
30:14Like be inspired and love what everyone's doing if you do.
30:18But like, don't focus on it as a guiding light for what you're doing.
30:22There's a couple of references to your mother on the album.
30:25I was wondering when you played it to her, what was her verdict?
30:28And were you nervous about playing it to her?
30:30Because it is so vulnerable.
30:32Yeah. I remember when I played her, Isn't That Enough?
30:37The video. She was just so.
30:41It's it's completely not something she would say, but when that video finished, she looked at me and she goes, oh, babe, you found yourself.
30:49And I thought that was so beautiful.
30:50And I and I never she doesn't say things like that.
30:53I just never will forget that, because clearly that was what that felt like to her.
30:58There was no portraying of something.
30:59It was just being of me.
31:01It's quite amazing response.
31:03Yeah. I can't imagine a better one from your mom.
31:06Who would you normally play your music for first when the song's kind of in progress?
31:12Probably my best friend, Brian, or my sister.
31:15They're probably the first two people I show.
31:18And they both quite honest.
31:19They're very honest.
31:21They're brutally honest.
31:23And I think that's why I was so happy with this album, because they were truly
31:28they truly loved it.
31:29And they were just like they were just connected to it.
31:33I felt like there was no thinking or people like this.
31:36And I think people were like there was no one.
31:37They were never saying stuff like that, like they have in the past.
31:40It was just like, no, I've been listening to it.
31:43So that's what that's all I know.
31:44You know, which song on the album was hardest to write?
31:48Heart of Gold was hard to write.
31:50That one took a long time to.
31:53Yeah, it just took time.
31:55It felt like moving through mud.
31:57I guess when you're writing about someone who meant so much to you,
32:00it's not that it kind of has to be exactly right.
32:04Yeah. You want to say the right things.
32:06You want to say you want to honor that relationship.
32:10You don't want to just like say words because they sound good or feel good.
32:13So that was the hard part.
32:14You know, ask one more question.
32:16It's slightly cheesy.
32:17When people hear the name Shawn Mendes or they see it on a poster,
32:20what do you want them to think?
32:22Or have you got to a point where you don't care?
32:25I think it's like, what do I want them to think?
32:27Yeah. God, I mean, I think if they think, oh, that guy. Yeah.
32:31That's a pretty good step.
32:33Like, you know, it's like if people are like, yeah, that guy.
32:37He's a good guy.
32:38Like, that's a pretty good place to be.
32:40But honestly, at this point, like I know so many people are just going to think
32:44so many things about about me, and I guess I don't really care
32:48as much as I used to about that, to be honest.
32:50That feels like progress, I think.
32:51I think that's some progress.
32:52Yeah. Well, thanks so much for your time.
32:54Thank you, man.
32:54It's been really fun to hear about that.
32:55Yeah. Appreciate it.