Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Charlie Puth on Taylor Swift’s Influence and New Album ‘Whatever’s Clever’ (March 2026)

Episode Date: August 2, 2026

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Charlie Puth has spent the last decade topping charts with hits like “See You Again,” “Attention” and “We Don’t Talk Anymore”. He also shares about performing the national anthem at the 2026 Super Bowl, drawing inspiration from Whitney Houston's iconic rendition. Puth sits down with Willie Geist at a New York City jazz club to discuss his fourth studio album, “Whatever’s Clever,” an orchestral pop record influenced by late 1980s and early 1990s yacht rock, while reflecting on the pivotal moments that shaped his rise from accidental pop star to global headliner. Plus, he opens up about a recent conversation with former President Barack Obama about the importance of music education, how Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” lyric pushed him to be more vulnerable and how marriage and fatherhood have reshaped his songwriting. (Original broadcast date March 8, 2026.) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with a new episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you with a truly brilliant musical mind, pop superstar, and so much more, really. Charlie Puth, he writes music, he produces music for other people, and of course, records his own, including the new album titled Whatever's Clever, which he calls Yacht Rock for 2026, as you'll hear in our interview. Charlie's story, maybe you know it, truly born to do this. A music prodigy learned to play the piano at four years old. His mother was a music teacher. Then there is this seminal moment in his life. At 12 years old, he's sitting in church. The church organist is out. And they literally asked the congregation for somebody to come up and play in place of the tape that they were just going to put in without an organist in the house. 12-year-old Charlie Puth raises his hand, steps forward, and plays the

the entire service from memory, having been in those pews for all those years. It just gives you a window into his musical mind and his musical talent. He went to Berkeley College of Music, a prestigious school up in Boston, graduated and moved almost immediately to Los Angeles to become a producer. On the second day he was there as a producer, he wrote a song called See You Again. He cut a demo for it, gave it to all these record labels. They were trying to add it to one of those fast and Furious movies. They said, we actually like the voice on the demo. Let him record it. So overnight, you'll hear him talk about this. Charlie goes from producer to artists, and he's thrust into the spotlight when that song blows up. It's number one for 12 weeks. It gets nominated for three Grammys,

and he's off to the races on the career of a pop star. You also just saw Charlie sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, nailed it, did kind of a gospel tribute in some ways. He said to Whitney Houston's version. He's always thinking about music. We spent some time at the piano and I get to watch how he builds a song. It's just so cool to sit down and say, how do you do it, man? How do you come up with this music? Another cool note about his new album, Whatever's Clever. It was inspired by his name, to his surprise, turning up in a lyric from a Taylor Swift song, the recent hit, Tortured Poets Department. And she says, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. Felt a little out of left field, but he took inspiration and motivation from that. So let's let him tell you these

stories instead of me. I'll step out of the way, sit back, relax, enjoy my conversation with Charlie Puth right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. First of all, great to see you. Great to see you, too. Thanks for doing this. Absolutely. I like how you sit down and you're already studying the room. Well, what do you see in here? Have you ever sat on one of those benches that kind of look like this, like in Central Park? Yes. There's one particular, I don't remember exactly where, big park. But If you sit on this side and I were to sit on this side, you could whisper something to me and the sound would travel, the speed of sound, all the way. They call it the whisper bench, I think. There's a few of them in the city.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what the curvature of this room is kind of giving that upside down. And that's intentional for jazz, you think, to just keep it intimate and? I think so. Yeah. This room definitely has some intentional things. My friend designed a restaurant where he put sound panels in the ceiling. So I think that's kind of a common thing here.

I don't see any sound panels, but maybe there's some good pink insulation. Yes. You're a musician through and through. You walked in, went right to the piano. You're just like, you can't help yourself, right? Well, that's the thing that calms me down. New York City can kind of get me like a... Sure.

On edge sometimes. So anytime I see a piano, it's like the, it's the only thing other than, like, food, if I'm hungry, that can instantly calm me down. And you've been doing it since you were, what, four years old or something like that, right? Yeah, since I was four. Yeah. More on that later. But I have caught you in just an absolutely incredible moment in your life.

First and foremost, you're about to have a baby. Yes. Congratulations in advance. Thank you. You're about to give birth to an album. Yes. And a tour. Yes.

And you just played the national anthem at the Super Bowl for like 150 million people or whatever it was. Yeah. How are you grappling with all the things that are happening in your life right now? I mean, yeah, I'm not going to lie. Sometimes it's difficult to comprehend how I'm going to get all of this done at the same time, having my first child and then going on a world tour. It's literally what it's called, the whatever's clever world tour. so we're going around the world.

Having that all happen at once, I just want to make sure I'm always there for my baby. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that, hopefully you're able to do that, right? Shoot back and forth.

Whatever, whatever it takes. Yeah. I work hard for a reason. So if I have to fly somewhere just to, well, not just to, but to play a show, see my fans, and then fly back, and then fly somewhere the next day, I would do that.

Got to ask you about the anthem, because as a viewer, we trust you. We know you're a great musician. You know, you can sing and play and arrange and all the things you're so good at. But still, the stage is so big. Right. The audience is so big. There's some nerves. Right.

What did it feel like for you to stand up there? You know, what's so funny is that when, or maybe this is typical for a performer, once I was on the field, I was no longer. nervous. It was the hour-long drive getting into the stadium the the the the the night before sleep not sleeping. It was that that's where the nerves were. It was the week leading up to it. But once I was on the football field, I felt fine. It was a it was an oddly calming chaos. It was a it was it was it was beautifully calm yet not. And I didn't expect that. I didn't expect fans of the Patriots and the Seahawks to almost forgot who

was playing musician. I almost forgot that I thought they were going to be, I thought it was going to be like people like throwing things. It was the most, it was like we were in Carnegie Hall. Everyone was so calm. It was very nice. And there's a reverence for that song that lends itself to that calm. There was a moment at the end. right after the flyover, home of the brave, you nail the note, and the song ends.

And I saw you just kind of go like this, you're like, like, I did it. You did it. I manifested this walking along the Hudson when I was told that I was chosen to do this. And I just, I think that was,

what I was thinking in that moment was, oh my gosh, it sounds exactly how I thought it was going to sound in my head. It just sounded exactly how I imagined it to sound. And I think seeing the jets fly over, that was the obvious, like, wow moment. But what I was really wowed about was, I can't believe it sounded exactly like how I had it in my head. I mean, the arrangement of chorus and orchestra, it didn't feel like church, like you said, a minute ago. And it was a nod to Whitney Houston in some ways, right?

Absolutely. So when you thought about it, was that right away? You said, I want to give a little Whitney Houston energy to this? Yeah, but the thing about Whitney's version, in my opinion, that will always be the best one ever done. So I wasn't trying to compete with it, but I wanted to pay its respects. Getting back to the music, when you listen to Land of the Free, you hear the melody, if you play Whitney's verse, version and my version side by side, I'm singing the exact same. That's a complete respect pay to her and her version. Her melody is the same. My, rather, mine is the same as hers. And there's, in the arrangement, I kind of hint at a, there's a lot of callbacks in the arrangement as well. I love what you did with it. It was really, you're in the pantheon. Whitney is Whitney. Stapleton a couple years ago. Yeah. his own thing.

That was wonderful. You did this beautiful rendition of it. Congrats on nailing it. That's a big moment. Thank you. That's a big moment. I just, I want to inspire people to, I want people, music students, people just getting started or having done it for a while, we might be discouraged at times.

I want them to look at that performance and know that they can do that too. Because I never thought in a million years that I'd be able to do that. Boy, did you. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Charlie Puth right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Charlie Puth. Let's talk about the album. I got a chance to listen to it over the last couple of days.

It's amazing. Oh, thank you. Really good. Kind of yacht rock 2026. Is that what we're calling it? I think that's the easiest way for me to describe how the album sounds. We have Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins and Kenny G. And we also have Jeff Goldblum.

Yeah. And we have new artists like Raven Linnae who are killing it and Coco Jones. who also performed at the Super Bowl is one of the best voices out right now. I think it's in the arrangements. You listen to every song. The way that they used to craft these yacht rock songs, they were rock records,

but they'd have elements of jazz in them. And on my second album, I really leaned into the R&B plus jazz, and now this is kind of leaning into the rock-ish plus jazz. It's not a complete. It's still an R&B pop record, but I think that's the best way to describe it. Well, I heard as a child of the 80s, I heard like notes of my favorite kind of music from like late 80s, early 90s. Does that make sense to you?

Late 80s, early 90s is definitely the, there's always a decade comparison to my records, which I like a lot. But I'd say late 89 going into the 90s is how you describe it. Right. little Phil Collins on some. Yeah. I thought I heard like a Wilson Phillips on a little. I'll let you know which one. There's just like all those, there's a nostalgia to it that feels good when the songs come in.

Yeah, without completely ripping off the, how it was done 30 years ago, but kind of swirling it and making it into a new, its own new thing. I think we accomplished that. It's the first time I ever worked with an orchestra and a choir. There's a reason why you saw a choir. at the Super Bowl. And when you listen to my album, that will make a lot of sense

because there's choirs everywhere, gospel choirs everywhere. There's an element of gospel all over the album, especially on the Jeff Goldblum song. Yeah. But those chords, I really laid into the chords. So how does your musical brain decide this is the sound I want to go with on this album?

Like, how did you land on this? Okay, I did R&B in the last one. This time, it's this. I think I have to, to take my mind, and this is very hard thing for me to do. I have to take my mind out of music world and just sit with myself and think where am I in life right now? I'm not where I was when I wrote attention, so I'm not going to do that again, although I love that song. I still love performing it. But where I am right now in my life, I live on a farm, and I live with the person who I'm

going to spend the rest of my life with. And I'm very happy. So I'm going to make music that reflects that. And it's personal. I mean, song by song, there's something that minds, whether it's singing to your father or about your late grandmother and cry. You can hear it. Your brother, like you can hear it all.

Disappointment as well. There's a song called Don't Meet Your Heroes. That's about being disappointed by someone who you might have looked up to for a very long time. and still do, but now it's like this tennis match, internal tennis match that you have with yourself. This internal, like, I still look up to this person in a lot of ways, but I don't know how I feel. The way I felt five years ago was in the way I feel now,

that's bottled up into a three-minute song with a nice orchestra in it as well. And it's kind of sad, but it's happy sounding. There's a dichotomy there, which I like. Did you feel more free, Charlie, on this album to talk about your life in a way that maybe you haven't in the past? I definitely felt more free to talk about my life in ways that I haven't in the past because I felt like I was allowed to, for some reason. But no one was saying I couldn't before.

I think I had to just grow up, and it took me a while to do that as well. So I'm not really good at telling everyone about my life unless there's a beat behind it. Right, right. That's why, again, why I walk to the piano, it kind of opens me up a bit. Right, right. And you definitely do that on this album.

There's a song called Jersey, which a couple of Jersey guys can really get behind. Bergen County. Yeah, Bergen County. On Monmouth County. You're down in Monmouth. And that's okay. We can still sit here and...

We can still be cordial with each of them. We can be court. Yeah. Yes. We go our separate ways after this, but obviously. Absolutely. For this brief time. We like each other. Yeah, for now.

Yes. What is it like to sit down and talk about not just where your life is now, but where it's been to talk about your roots and to kind of mine some of the old material from childhood? Well, that song in particular is kind of a... I still love New Jersey. I'll always love New Jersey. I'll probably live in New Jersey again one day. That's a song about being in denial just because something.

not great happened to you once there. You're like, well, I'm just not going to go there anymore. It's like, dude, grow up. It's your home. Of course you're going back there. So it's kind of a fun. That's with Raven Linnae. And it kind of like sounds West Coast,

even though it's a song about the East Coast. Yeah. It's a dichotomy. It's funny. There's an element of comedy throughout on this album, which I've never, I've never, really approached music that way before, but I realized some of my favorite moments in culture and in music have elements of comedy sprinkled in them. There's a song called, I used to be

cringe, which almost sounds like the middle of a funny Broadway show. And I think that's the first song you wrote for the album. It's the last on the album that's the first one you wrote. I think I was listening to it just this morning, and there's almost a little sadness to it. Yeah. What are you talking about when you say I used to be cringe? Meaning I, for a long time, as I was figuring out how to be an artist, I maybe put up a front a little bit at times. Maybe I pretended to be someone that I wasn't, because I just wanted people to like me so badly.

But again, part of growing up. It's funny, every time I say that, I keep hearing the Growing Up song by Bruce Springsteen, because we're talking about Jersey, Greetings from Hasbury Park. It's a part of me growing up, realizing that I didn't have to pretend to be anybody. All I needed to be was myself. And that's, I guess, anybody watching this right now who might be going through that.

It's sometimes hard to admit, but it is the best thing to be yourself. That's what's going to resonate most with people, especially if you're creating art. Because you're one of one. You want to create art that's one of one. Just be yourself. sounds easier than it is. I was going to say that's hard in the moment. There's a line in that song where you say something like,

I just wanted a seat at the table. Yeah, I wanted to be. So I played a part to get there. Absolutely. I wanted so badly to get a recording contract. And once I got the recording contract, I wanted people to like my music so bad. So I would slouch in interviews and like trying to be this,

like, I'm not a mystery, like a cool guy. What makes me cool is that I am myself and I love art and I love people, inspiring people to make art. But tell that to 22, 23-year-old me, I just wasn't there yet. But it has to be gratifying to know that part of why you've exploded is by being yourself, whether it's doing the stuff on social media and you're saying, I'm a musician, I love music, I want to share with you what I know, and that's really where you've grown. Absolutely.

I was telling Barack Obama the other night that, This guy. Go ahead. I don't even get the name you just dropped. Here you go. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, how am I going to tell the story? And it's a brief one, too. The first thing I said to him is that there should be, is there any way that we can have more music in schools?

I travel everywhere in Europe. You go to Sweden. Every student starts, maybe not everywhere, but most students start their day off with something creative. And then they're excited to do the left side of brain activities for the rest of the day. That music curriculum is always taking a back seat here in America. Not everywhere. I mean, there's great schools here in Manhattan, up in Harlem and Manhattan School of Music, where I went, and upstate in Rochester at Eastman School of Music.

There's great programs everywhere. Even in Tanglewood and New England Music Camp and Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. But why is it on this side? I want to go in the middle of the country. There are great places there, too, but I want, I just, and maybe I can be the person to kind of lead the charge. That's a, you know, I care more about that than have, I want success in my music, but not just for self-gratification.

I want it to be the vessel that brings people to want to make music. And you're totally right about that. Whenever they're budget cuts, they go, go to the arts. Yeah, we need it for the football team, which is fine. Football is great. I love football, obviously. but I just believe that there's an artist in everybody. I love that.

So let's talk about the artist and you. We talked about you from a very young age. Your mother being a music teacher playing the piano when you were four, this moment famous now where you filled in on the organ at church. Yeah. Right. At Holy Cross Apostolic Church in Rumson, New Jersey. And you were how old?

I was 11 or 12. Yeah. I think 12. And you weren't prepared for it. Mm-mm. You just, there was a netheralic. need and you filled it. Yeah, I always, and I, I love filling a need to this day at 34. I still have that same yearn that I did at 12 years old to just musically fill something if, if I'm needed. And I was

needed that day. They were going to play the entire mass on cassette. And I raised my hand, and I said, don't do that. I can, I, I, I've listened to it every Sunday. Like, we go to mass two times a week. I know it by heart and everyone looked at me. Like, I'm like, what? It's just like reading, studying for a vocabulary test. If you read the definition of oxymoron 100 times, you're going to remember what the definition is just because you read the passage so many times. So I just went up at the keyboard thinking that music is this literal thing that anyone can just listen to,

like words and memorize. And I just played the whole mass from memory. And I realized that that wasn't a typical thing. And it would end up being a real. really useful tool later in life. Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of thing where you, that might be a watershed moment where you go, oh, I have something that's maybe a little bit different than other people have. Yeah, that was the watershed moment. That was it. And so was there ever any question as you grew up and you came up, started doing YouTube videos and everything else,

were you always going to be a musician in some form? I think I always knew I wanted to be a musician. My dad is a builder. He builds houses. So I was always very fascinated by what he would do. And I saw the similarities of what it was like building a house versus building a record. I'm going to mess this up. So if he's watching it. But typically when you build a small house, you start with the foundation, you lay the concrete down. No one in California has a basement. Some do. But in New Jersey, we need the basement. So you start with the basement. and you just build the house layer by layer, and I realize that that's kind of how you produce a record, too. To produce a record, you don't just throw every instrument all at once. You can start with the low end, the bass, and then add the percussive elements and the little windows and finishes

and the particular type of paint. That's what you put at the very end of a song, the little bells and whistles. And you saw it that way from a young age? like, oh, I think I know how to build a song. Yeah. And another thing I saw from a young age was were my parents' reactions

to music that they loved. They put in my mind, I'm going to Carolina by James Taylor, and it would make the road trip better. And I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be responsible for writing those types of records that gave people,

aka my parents, that type of reaction. I've heard you say before you like being able to set a vibe or change a vibe in a room, and that's a gift that you have. If sometimes a vibe needs changing, and you can do that. I mean, imagine, have you ever been to a spa before?

Imagine going to a spa and there's, you know, they're playing Metallica. And I love Metallica, but you don't want to listen to it. Well, I do sometimes. Like a fancy, nice spa where you're, I don't know, whatever people do with spas. You're not going to hear.

Getting massage to enter Sandman. Yeah, you're not going to hear sad, Baturran or Sandman or for whom the bell tolls when you're getting a relaxing Swedish massage, you're going to hear music that goes along with the experience. That's the same thing at a concert as well. In an hour into the show, it might be the part of the show where the vibe goes down for a second and then it picks back up. If there's a bunch of, in picture there were a hundred people in this room talking, you wanted them to kind of chill out a little bit. There's a way to do that without getting on a megaphone to be like, please be quiet. You can, you can convey that

through the chords. Right. Right. You can command their attention in a different way. Yeah. It's music is, I don't think there's anything else that does that. That's so cool. You mentioned you went to the pre-college program in Manhattan School, musical, Berkeley. Like, you're very well and classically trained. Yeah. And then eventually it's time to move to L.A. Yeah. And you go out there, you correct me, if I'm wrong, to be a producer, really, to make write songs and make music for other people. But then very, very quickly, that changed. That changed.

Yeah, because, so for everyone who doesn't know, these things called demos, you have to sing the demo, and sometimes the artist will hear the demo, and then get excited by it and maybe want to change a couple of things or rewrite some parts, but you send them the demo, and then they re-sing what you wrote most of the time. So that's what my job was in 2014. So I would sing the demos, and then all the record label executives would ask, well, who's this singing? It sounds like an artist. And I'm like, well, no, I'm not the artist.

I want X, Y, and Z to sing it. And the song that I'm referring to is, of course, See You Again. And we wrote it for the Fast and Furious franchise. And they were looking for artists to sing it. And nobody, in their words, nobody did as good. good of a job as me. So overnight, I became the artist that goes back to me, you know, fumbling a little bit and saying things that I shouldn't say in interviews and making things up. Because I didn't know how to be an artist. Right. I didn't really, I knew myself,

but again, I thought I had to put up, you know, a fake front. Right, because all of a sudden you were being asked to be the face of the song. Yeah. And I was, sometimes I was getting bad advice. Like, oh, you need to concoct this controversy for people to want to listen to. There needs to be some sort of story to draw people in. I didn't realize that it's just the song needed to be good. Well, you're also young in news. You're listening to that and go, okay, I guess that's how it works out here. Just wanted to, you know, make people happy. I still want to make people happy, but now I know how to make myself happy. Stick around for more of my conversation with Charlie Puth right after a quick break. Welcome back now.

to the rest of my conversation with Charlie Puth. So see you again. True that you wrote that on the second day you were in L.A.? Yeah. So you arrive in L.A. Two days later, you write, see you again. Again, not with the intention of you're singing it. Right?

Get together with Wiz Khalifa. Yeah, well, not with Wiz. I just spoke to the other day. He's doing great. I got together with the two other songwriters on the song named DJ Frankie and Andrew Cedar. DJ Frankie, Justin Frank's, really talented songwriter, would, we'd find out that we were, we had both just recently in years time had experienced some form of loss, but why would we tell each other that having just met each other? But we told each other that through the music and because of that we were, it was, it's been a long day and he'd say, oh, we should say something about friends with tell you my friend. And then I said, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. And then he said, and then he said, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. And then he said, and then he said,

said, we've come a long way, and then I said, from where we began. And we're just meeting each other and having this amazing musical moments, and Andrew was working on the chords. And it's just, it's, and then best friends came about just from our songwriting session. I can't imagine what it's like, and I've talked to other artists about this, to be in a room like that, and it feels good, but you don't know how it's going to end up or where it's going to go. And then to, like, you'll be in a couple of months, you'll be in a stadium. him halfway around the world and the whole place will be singing the song back to you. Absolutely.

That you wrote in that room. That must be an incredible feeling. It is an incredible feeling and I'm not the only one who can do it too, which is there's a lot of, I believe there's a lot of discouragement going on in the world. Like if you try and be an artist and put yourself out there in the world, you're almost laughed at nowadays. That's the only way to do it is to put yourself out on the internet and showcase your artistry. So let me be the example. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Backsong becomes a huge hit. It's number one

for 12 weeks. You nominated for three Grammys. I think you would agree. It's the song that changed your life. Yeah, we lost all of those, by the way. I know. Nominations. That's okay. It's all right. One day, I think this is the last year of me being a Grammy nominee. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. We'll play this. We'll rewind this back when I won several. I think you're going to get a couple for this album. I think. You should, anyway. Yeah.

We'll see. Yeah. What did that song mean to you, your life, your career, when it really just took on a life of its own? What was that like in that time? It was equal parts amazing and frightening because, like I said, a couple times now. I had to figure out suddenly how to be an artist in front of millions of people. And they were all waiting. Well, not all waiting, but everybody was intrigued.

what will he put out next? It's, See You Again is a piano-based song. Okay, let's put out a song called Marvin Gaye, and it has nothing to do with See You Again. And it's a great song, but it's, there's no consistency music. I mean, one of the only consistent things about that is the fact that I'm singing it and that I'm playing piano on it. I produce both records, Marvin Gay by myself.

And then, but it didn't really serve me as an artist. No one really knew me yet. So then we put one call away out, which is more in the world of CU again, I'd say. And it's a song that I love. Oh, wait until you hear it on the road. We have this new arrangement for it. I get excited. And then I made out of nowhere while I was traveling in the Philippines,

I remember it was really hot and felt very tropical. And it was like 2016. and I thought, well, maybe I'll make some tropical sounding song and then, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, we don't talk anymore. And all, I kind of fell into place. And then attention and then had its baseline, because I love Rick James, and I love the give it to me, but doong, ding, ding, ding, ding. And how long has this been going on kind of has that same thing?

So I started to have consistency, but it took probably eight years to, get there. Okay. Definitely. So it was an overnight thing, but not really. Well, there was probably also, I mean, you just alluded to pressure. Like, this song is such a hit, quick, get something else out. And you don't have time to think about what that would be exactly.

Or do it the way maybe you would do it with time. Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better. That's been most of my career. I've been on a radio promo tour with a hit out and nothing else. And I have to make an album in my tour bus. This is the first time with this record. whatever's clever, my fourth album, my fourth studio album that I was able to say to myself,

okay, you just got married, you have all intentions of starting a family, you are going to Asia for four weeks doing that part of the tour. Think of songs, like, take your time. This is the first time where I had the luxury of being able to take my time. There was a moment when you kind of pulled away in 2020, your third album, and you said, this is a isn't right. Yeah. That felt like, to me, just reading about it, it felt like a moment for you where you're like, I'm going to like step off this treadmill for a minute and make sure I start to get things the way I want them to be. Is that fair? Well, I felt that there was a lot of inauthenticity kind of clouding me at the end of 2019, right before the pandemic started. And I'm not going to

sit here and be like, oh, the pandemic was good for me. But it was, it was, it was basically forced time for me to sit with my musical thoughts and I didn't have that time the last time I had that time was 2014 before my record deal when I was living at my parents' house

so where was I in 2020 living at my parents' house again and concocting these songs for this new app called TikTok and thinking, well, there's this duet function on this app that no one's really using or utilizing musically, I'll put up some chords.

This song is half-baked. It's unfinished. Maybe someone in New Zealand can write some top line or a melody or put a beat to it. And I started collaborating with a lot of these songs didn't come out, but I started really getting excited by the idea of internet collaboration. And then Zoom became a thing. We would have internet songwriting sessions. It sounds like I'm in 1993 right now.

The internet, we're fired up Netscape. But that was a really inspiring time for me, too, because I think my third album was the internet album. So what was happening in 2019 that made you feel like you needed a reset? When you said it was inauthentic time? Well, I think it was a combination of the people I was surrounding myself with, maybe um

uh there's uh but i'm it's hard for me to describe because I'm really thankful for every moment because I wouldn't be here speaking to you at 34 fully fully I believe I figured a lot out I'm thankful for those moments of not having things figured out

and I don't place blame on anything or anyone it's uh it was just kind of going through the motions but I just wasn't really I wasn't in a good place. It's like I knew Brooke was, my wife now, was the one for me and I didn't, I just wasn't allowing it to happen for some reason. That's interesting. I, from a early point on, I was like, I can't have that part of my life figured out. I just, I need to travel the world. I need to, it's just typical male stuff not figuring it out yet. So when did you smack some sense into

yourself and say, wait a minute, I got to do this. I think when I saw her with someone else, and I knew that she was going to get married to them, and that was a real, that was a scary moment for me, because I realized that's music. I always thought music was the one thing that could make me feel better. And for the first time, I was making music and it wasn't making me feel better. It's the person that I should be writing songs about. that was going to make me feel better. And I was going to lose that person.

So I had to really smack myself into shape. And now you are writing songs about her. Yes, absolutely. And you got a baby coming. So it's working out. Yeah. Whether baby likes music or not, that's totally fine. I have a sneaking suspicion that baby's going to like music.

It'll be in the room anyway. You play this interview back in 18 years. We'll see. We'll see. I got to ask you about the lyric in Tortured Poets Department from Taylor, where she talked about you. That's the lyric that inspired this album. Well, that's what I was going to ask you,

because it could be kind of a fun one-off. Oh, that's cool. She named-checked me, and you're like, no, actually, it meant a lot to you and inspired you. Yeah, I think there was a lot layered into however many words that that nice lyric had. bigger artist means that you have to open up. I think it was a message to, dude, open up a little bit, be an artist. She does that so well.

That's why millions of people can relate to her. And I always felt like I kind of put a cap on how many people could relate to me. And that's a scary thing to open that can of worms. But I looked at that as, oh, it was very nice, but I think that was a good. I think that was a message to me to open up. That's so interesting. You don't hear that. It's like he's so talented.

He should be even more popular than he is. You thought she wants you to be a different kind of artist. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what her thoughts are about my music specifically. They can be whatever they are. But I do, and it would be advice that I would pass down to other artists, to just open up. And it sounds like such an easy thing to do,

but it's a terrifying and hard thing to do. But it's a good push to hear that in a song. And you're a good example for it because it took you so long to get to that place, where as you said, you wanted to kind of keep everything tight, but you feel like a little bit liberated now that you've done it on this album? Well, I'm a very private person,

but I realize that I can make art and talk about my private experiences and realize that they're actually not so private. There's a lot of people that go through what I go through. And that's how you relate to people who choose to listen to your music, maybe. You're talking about universal themes. Absolutely. Last thing I want to ask you about is Professor Puth, because I think it speaks to who you are.

I kind of look like Ross Geller, who I guess was a paleontologist in France. Is this the Ross look? I like it. This is a very pottery barn, like, I like it. They say days go by now. We're in the fall time. There's acorns on the ground. We'll rear this fall.

Yeah, coffee village house. Yeah. My publicity will love that. Aaron in the fall. Perfect timing. Very strategic of you. I can see. We have to air it later, too.

I came up with Professor Puth with my friend Justin from the record label. Just because I love talking about music. And he was like, oh, it's. like you're kind of, he said, he's a, well, he's Gen Z. So he said, oh, you're giving teacher. What are you saying right now? What is that? It's not a complete sentence. You're missing some prepositional phrases there. But he was like, no, you're kind of like a teacher. You could be the internet's music teacher. Like, you're like a professor, pooth. I'm like, P.P. Cool. All right. That's what I'll call this. That's the end of it. That's the end of that story.

How cool, though, that because you are, you've got the perfect pitch, all these things that people know about you to in some ways kind of give away your secrets so that other people can fly. I don't think there should be any secrets in music. I never understood accomplished producers who never handed out their sound banks and gave tips to other aspiring producers like it was just meant for them. I believe music's meant for everybody. So I just gave out the stems, meaning the separate music files to the ProTools session to my song Beat Yourself Up, which is the second single we put out on this album. And I just gave it to millions of people, said,

do what you want with these stems. Maybe make a remix of this. Like make something that inspires me. I just think it goes, I think great music should be recycled, and I don't think there should be any secrets. That's so cool. Congratulations. The album's great.

Congratulations on the National Anthem, on the tour. Most of all, on Baby. Thank you. Great to see you. Great to see you. Jersey. Thanks, Jersey, baby. After our conversation, there in the Django Jazz Club in New York City, Charlie just couldn't resist.

There was a piano on stage we hopped up. He told me how he builds a song. Also talked about the fact that he famously has perfect pitch. Like, there's a difference between that and it gets ugly and then a little less ugly, officially pretty really pretty even prettier and then deep pretty

same feel like you can minor second versus but you have to put a little bit of ugly to make things really pretty if that makes sense the ugly is the foundation then you build on that yeah I mean even

maybe ugly isn't even it's well it is ugly that's like what a fire alarm is But if you, you know, same thing. That's just with that E flat added in there. And then you add the fifth. And that sounds like Toto, although. That's how you write songs.

You just play around and like, that's why it's really important for like the piano to sound like good. And this one's pretty good. So let's take a song like Changes, which is your first single on this album, big hit. There's been some changes. I was build that.

That actually started out with the drums. It was like, gung-to-c-c-c-c-c-c-g-c-bloodd-c-c-bop who helped me produce that record. Start off with that. And we were going through all our sound libraries, and nothing was really resonating. So I was like, all, let's just go to the basic. Let's just go to a piano.

And he stood up and, like, yum. That's what he says when he likes something. And then we put a little guitar And then I just There's been something In the air There's been a lot of smaller talk Just out of nowhere

Like just fell out of this guy And then the lyrics come from there Absolutely And then we kind of knew what we wanted to sing about The changes is about Like a friendship that's kind of morphing into a new thing maybe whether that be like you're not as close with the person or you just, you know, life happens. You get married.

You move to different parts of the world. There's been some changes in our life. I can feel the distance. Space and time has made everything different day and night. Everything has changed in. I don't know why. But there's a vertical horizon song called, She's everything she wants.

She's everything you need. And she is everything inside of you that you wish you could be. He says all the right things at exactly the right time, but he means nothing to you and you don't know why. That's the inspiration. You don't know why, but you know why. Right. You internally know why, but, you know, above the epidermist, you don't know why.

And does that hit you in the room? You think of that song or you come in with that as some kind of inspiration. It just hits you. Yeah. Wow. For that one specifically, like I said, started with the drums. The chords brought the melody out. Because I was in kind of a Toto vibe, Phil Cohn.

And I'm listening back to kind of pacing the room because we recorded and I'm looping it. I'm listening to it. I'm listening to it. Yes. In our life. And it starts in a... It just came out. Yeah.

Yeah, there's been some changes in a life. I can feel the distance, space and time. I love when you can mute the vocals and hear the lyrics. They're like invisible lyrics. Like if you maybe attention. The pre-chorus, that's the melody to the pre-course. That's the melody to the pre-course. And you hear it the moment you press play on the record.

I know that dress is karma. If you regret, tell me thinking bad when you were mine, and now I'm all up on you. What you expect? It's almost sounds like a classical piece of music. So if the melody in a song is at the very top of the song and the human brain is hearing it

and it's embedded in there already, then when you fast forward 45 seconds, 50 seconds into the chorus and you hear something familiar, I believe that's what a hit record could be. And none of us knows that's happening. You just told me that and they go, oh, I never thought of it that way. Because maybe it's not the, I mean, when I take medicine to feel better when I'm sick, I don't, I'm not necessarily like, well, what are these molecular components? Like, I'm, I mean, I'll still be interested in that, but like, I just want to feel better.

People sometimes just want to put the song on it. They just want to feel something. Don't intellectualize it. Just feel it. Or do it if you want to. I would, but not everybody wants to. I got to ask you about the perfect pitch thing. Have you always had it?

Like since you were a kid? I believe so, because there is a video. My mom used to have one of these cameras around and document a, and that's what I'll do with my child as well. She used to document everything. There's a video of me singing, Cheeseburger Paradise by Jimmy Buffett. And I'm singing it.

My voice was higher back. back then. Cheapagher in paradise. I'm singing it in D major. So I probably did have it. I just didn't know how to articulate it that early on. For the layman, what does it mean exactly? Any noise you come across in your day you hear?

Well, everything, yeah, basically. Everything has tonality, including this air conditioner that the film crew so desperately wants to eliminate out of it. And I understand why, but everything, like from hitting, there's like a, um, Like that, when, just because of this room, if I hit this, the sound that happens, that kind of changed to a B-flat after that, but everything has tonality to it if I hit the boop, which is, so it's the sound that happens after you hit something. That's especially true with things that naturally have. Like if you hear James Taylor playing, I can hear that and pick out all the notes that he's playing.

So I'm lucky enough where I'm able to hear something and dissect it, like zoom in on it and see what all of the components are made of. It's the same thing as like a really good chef tasting a pie and knowing exactly what the person put into it. All the ingredients. All the ingredients. How much of that is a gift?

How much is the amount of time you've spent around music? and absorbed things? I think they go hand in hand together. I'm definitely very lucky to have it because it makes me able to come up with music very quickly. Like I can hear a song finished in my head and then reverse engineer it, and it'll most of the time sound like how I imagined it,

kind of like the national anthem, that what you heard at the Super Bowl is exactly how I thought it was going to sound in my head. So I'm lucky in that sense. But do you need it to make a great song? No, there's people who make brilliant songs, and they're not the most proficient at their instrument. These kind of rooms, jazz clubs,

you like playing these places, the intimacy of it? I do. They're actually a lot harder to play than the stadiums and the arenas. How come? Because, you know, there's someone there looking at you like this. And if you play one wrong note, which is fine, by the way, but it's very noticeable. And just you can really feel 200 people, 50 people's energy when they're right in front of you.

It's very obvious that you're playing a show. Where in an arena you can have some lights, you've got the smoke machine. You can hide a few things. You need to. Yeah, if you need to. And there's more reverb. It's very dry in here. It's, yeah.

This is cool. With that said, how cool is it going to be to play The Garden on this upcoming tour? I've always wanted to play The Garden. I've always wanted to put a show on that is just not overly musical, but just musical. It can be overly musical for those who want it to be. And then for everyone else who just wants to simply listen, it's for them as well. And to be able to have it sell so well is such a. amazing thing. I'm not going to say I never thought that I could sell out the garden, but like I always wanted to. I was kept it in the back of my brain. A kid from Rumson, New Jersey to sell out the garden. It's about as good as it gets. Yeah. I've been very fortunate to play the PNC Bank Art Center and Count Basie Theater.

And you're going to, for everyone who saw me there, you can expect an even better musical show. I think we have the best band in pop and a lot of... Oh, that's not right. All those jazz chords, like all those little kind of things that make you go mm. Like I just made you go mm.

I didn't even say, say, I can just... You're going to hear all of that at the Garden Show and on the tour if you choose to come to any more shows as well. I just think it's... It wowes me here.

hearing the band play. So it's definitely going to wow everyone else. Awesome, man. Can't wait. Congrats on everything. Thank you. Appreciate the time today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this piano that you gave me. It's yours. My big thanks to Charlie for a great conversation. By the way, Charlie and I had that conversation at the Django Jazz Club in the Roxy Hotel

in New York City, a really cool room if you're ever in town. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.