Switched on Pop - Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist (with Charlie Puth)

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

On her latest album, Taylor Swift “declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” No one was more surprised by this than Charlie Puth himself: the singer, pianist, and songwriter whose career has always straddled pop stardom and behind the scenes anonymity. After three albums, billions of streams, and numerous songwriting credits – including one on the award-winning number one track “Stay” from the Kid Laroi – Puth has been busier than ever. His new song “Hero” comes on the heels of the Swift mention, and takes him in a new direction, with acoustic guitars and hushed, contemplative vocals. On the heels of this song’s release, Nate sat down with Charlie Puth himself at Conway Studios in Hollywood to discuss the new track, aided by a piano and all of “Hero”’s isolated stems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. When Taylor Swift released her song, The Tortured Poets Department, it had a line that few saw coming. You smoked them eight, seven bars of chocolate. We declare Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.

We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. And no one was more surprised to hear this than Charlie Puth himself, the singer, pianist and songwriter whose career has always straddled pop stardom and behind the scenes anonymity. Even his breakout track, 2015's See You Again with Wiz Khalifa wasn't supposed to feature his voice. He wrote the song intending for someone else to perform it like Sam Smith or Chris Brown. But in the end, his vocals were chosen and the song landed on the soundtrack to Furious Seven. and became a worldwide hit. But that hit led to his first album, nine-track mind, and more inescapable bops like his duet with Selena Gomez,

We Don't Talk Anymore. His next album, Voice Notes, dug into Puth's deeper influences, featuring a collaboration with boys to men and producing a switched-on-pop favorite attention. His most recent album, Charlie, dove into more maximalist textures on driving tracks like Light Switch. Even while he was making his own music, Puth continued writing for other artists, crafting bops for the likes of Jason DeRolo, Katie Perry, and The Kid Leroy. At the same time, he created an online persona based around his gleeful music nerdery using his perfect pitch and studio,

wizardry to turn random sounds into full-fledged compositions in a matter of minutes. In 2024, Puth has been busier than ever, collaborating most recently with the K-pop group Stray Kids on the song Lose My Breath, but he wasn't planning to release his own music until Taylor Swift made her unexpected shout-out. With Swift's declaration ringing in his ears, Charlie decided to drop the first single from his next album, a track called Hero that uses acoustic guitars and hushed vocals to generate a narrative around hard conversations and cautious hope. Written with veteran hitmakers John Byron, J. Cash, and guitarist Jack Rashon, the song takes Puth in a new direction and finds him ready to make good on Swift's claim.

I sat down with Charlie at Conway Studios in Hollywood to discuss the new track, and when I got there, He was sitting in front of a piano and had all the isolated stems of Hero pulled up in Pro Tools. And the first thing he did was provide us with some intro music. Charlie Puth, welcome to Switchdown Pop. Thank you for playing our traditional opening music. That is your theme music, right? Yeah. Or is it an F sharp.

No, it is. I mean, we downpitch it sometimes. I appreciate you taking the time to learn it. Can you imagine this was your theme song? I think we're going to have to start this episode of that. Sounds like Dracula's lair. And there goes all of our musicalocical credibility.

That's actually pretty hip. I feel like we got something there. That's like a Roy Ayers. Ooh, yeah. We live in Brooklyn, baby. Bushwick Bill. Charlie Puth, we are so happy to have you on Switchdown Pop.

I'm very, very happy to be here. Thank you for having that. This is a long time coming. I feel like if we drew up a chart of dream guests, who we understand have a proclivity for musical nerdery, I think you'd be somewhere at the top of that.

You have a new song. It's called Hero. Yeah, Hero. Can we listen to the chorus? Yeah. Here's the hook. Oh, my. Breath of Fresh Air.

There's not a whole lot going on there. Yeah, and we're going to get into all. We're going to flog it to death. Yeah, perfect. I have my terrible CP70 sound, ready to pull up any musical reference you may need. Well, I'd like to just start with the title. Hero. I think you hear that title and you're like, oh, okay, this is going to be like Enrique Iglesias, right? I can be your hero. It's actually the opposite. It really is. I guess on first listen and first watch, I guess, of the title, you'd think, oh, Hero, there's going to definitely be an angel pad choir song in there somewhere. But lyrically, it's kind of the opposite. It's kind of about approaching someone who,

who may be in a little bit of denial. Yeah. Like you might have been, like, very close with. And they kind of drift away and go their separate ways. And you see them kind of deteriorating in a way, doing bad habits, being around bad people, not being real nice to themselves. And then when you reach out to them,

they're like, I don't need your help. I don't need, you know, someone to preach to me right now, aka I don't need a hero, which was a sentence that was said to me once, and I always thought, oh, I'll write a song that sounds angelic in a way in its musicality, but is kind of deep, deep, it's deep, bro. It's a little more dense lyrically. Yeah. No, I totally hear there's a tension between the music and the lyrics to a degree.

There's a lot of tensions in this song, actually. Yeah. Well, the great thing about this is it's simple enough where everybody can kind of put their own personal experience into it. It's hyper-specific lyricism, but it's not like so specific that people are like, oh, this only happened to Charlie and Charlie only. Let's start at the beginning. What's the first thing we hear in this track?

Starts off with this, which is a guitarist named Jack just playing and then cutting it off, just taking a little bit. Oh, cool. And putting the Valhalla on the, not using a send, just putting it right on the insert, making the release time about like four or five seconds and just letting it kind of just dissipate. I love that.

Yeah, I didn't even realize that was a guitar. Yeah, it kind of played like in a mandolin kind of way. It was a little tremolo. Yeah, a little tremolo because I didn't want to use any, I felt very wrong in the song to use a crash symbol. It's like you don't want to have like a 707 just blaring loudly. It just feels like crass and wrong. So I guess the tail end of that is kind of a crash symbol in a way

because when the moment you hear the end of that, the guitar part comes in. So you have that. The guitar, which is kind of the driving. The driving force of it all. And tell me if I'm playing it too. It still sounds good. Nice. I'm obsessed with the way things sound. Under that is my Rhodes, I think it's called 87, 88.

And it has the Juno-specific chorus on it. A little tapis run through a neve. Like chopped like a little bit of bass like up to 50 under it. And it kind of goes well with them. And there's a song, do you know what it takes? I want it. I was like, I don't want to copy that. But I don't want it to be a bass player playing this part.

I want it to be like the mode that they're doing. So I just, mine's a little, me and Manny made it a little bit deeper. So it's almost like a 95-2000s kind of bass line against these. It's like, my name is Charlie. It's like kind of corny sounding like that. But then when you put the guitar on top of it, now it's like this boy genius, Phoebe kind of thing. which I definitely was like kneeling towards

when I'm very inspired by them and always have to have fat kicks in my songs. But this one's a little muffled because I didn't want it to be about, I really wanted the lyrics to like stand out and we'll definitely get to those. But the thing about these drums is that they kind of sound kind of shitty

on their own. They sound bad. But when you put it together with everything, and the bass and the little flutter, high hats, the keys. It all starts to sound like, oh, that might, someone actually might have recorded that as a band. But no, it's on the grid, but like I, when you play everything all together,

it sounds like a cohesive kind of band. That's recorded in a hotel. And all I did was just double it. I want to stop by and play cool. A little bit of delay. It's hard to talk with all these people in your room. I try to lock eyes and give you clues. So you can come and follow me out by the pool.

This is the reverb that's happening. It's like a roomy kind of thing. I wanted to sound like someone was like performing it in their living room for like 10 close friends. So it's like a very intimate sounding kind of thing. How does that support the lyrical message of this? the song. I wanted to like feel like come here. I want to like I have to have like kind of an uncomfortable conversation with you. Like you're like messing up and I want to be there for you as a friend. And I'm not going to say, I want to be there for you. It just doesn't like it's going to be

I want to stop by and play a cool. It's hard to talk with all these people in your room. I try to lock guys and give you clues so you can come and follow me out to the pool. I think one of the reasons why I got like really excited when Taylor had shouted me out literally wrote my name in her song. I had made this song like three weeks before that had happened and I was kind of unsure about this one like do people want to hear this from me or do they want to just like have of the straightaway pop banger that everybody can listen to, which is fine, but I wanted

to get a little more specific lyrically, and she's definitely like one of the best at that, if not the best, at just overly, like, how is she making tea kettle rhyme with blah, blah, blah, blah. Like right now, it's genius.

But I was definitely inspired by that when she shouted me out. I was like, I should probably put the song out that kind of does, that takes that form. formula a little bit. Well, I feel like you can hear that, and especially when we take away and isolate these different elements, it's like half of the song is this Taylor Swiftian singer-songwriter, guitar-driven ballad. And the other half are these more digital, even funky elements that you might associate with a typical Charlie Puth production or something. So here's it if it was just the guitar and the vocals.

Like coffee house vibes Right, right We're in the coffee house Yeah But when you have all the Okay now it's getting a little Yeah A little roots

Entering the club a little bit But I'd say the part that's most Me is the backgrounds I don't need a hero I don't want to be saved But I said I'll be here Every part is like very important, but supports each other. Right.

Usually I record the air conditioner and boost it in fab filter to make sure it has the F sharp. And now it's a guitar. That served a purpose. And I love doing stuff like that, especially on the internet. But I felt it was really important just to like have the most important part of the song shine, I don't need a hero. Again, from the hotel, like going into an 1176. I don't need a hero.

I don't want to be saved. But I said I'll be here. Whoa, can we hear those chords? I want that, I want more that crunch. There's a difference between there's, there's, that's the one. Those chords have the end. ambiguity that the song demands because it's kind of a bittersweet song to me. It's a little sad, it's a little hopeful, it's a little bright, it's a little dark.

I feel like those chords capture some of that in between this. Well, I got to give it up to the guitarist that you're hearing. His name is Jack, and originally I thought it was going to be... And then he made the suggestion to... I was like, this is very clever. Yeah. A pagetura. Absolutely, yes, whatever that French dish means.

But when people bring an interesting songwriting starts, like what if we, instead of doing the regular, deggler, we do, it makes my brain want to, it's like playing tennis. It's like, oh, that's very cool what you just brought on a songwriting level. Let me now bring something simple yet effective. Like maybe I'll do what you did in the guitar, but with the vocals, I'll do like the discals. I'll do like the dissonance instead of... And it doesn't resolve because he wasn't really resolving. It's all...

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from the first instant and I don't even irresistible. Discovered La Ory and let's get involver for his sense. Can we talk more about the voice? I think this chorus

is so, not only very effective in delivering this message I don't need a hero. It's also very hooky. It's very catchy. There always has to be an element of like Swedishness.

There we go, the Kairon Studios mantra. Yeah, absolutely. The way the, the melody works with your voice too, It's like, I don't need a... Sorry, everyone.

Okay, let's that uh. Just cover. I guess normally I would go, I don't need a hero. It felt like too like, oh, baby, baby, baby. I didn't want to feel like... Me, me.

It's cool, but like I wanted to like be almost like I didn't know how to sing. I don't need a ear. Yeah. I don't want to be saved. Because it's whimsical and it's delivery, but the message is like, it's like about, like, a really, like, heavy thing that, like, I experienced. And I feel like a lot of people experience that, too. So why not kind of take the piss out of it and make fun of it in a whimsical kind of way?

Well, it feels a little more vulnerable, actually, I think, when you're listening to it. In some way, like when you're not taking yourself so seriously, which is fine. but that wouldn't have served a purpose for a song like that. And yet at the same time, I feel like when you pop into that falsetto, it gives us that satisfaction of listening to a real hooky chorus too. Because there's something very, hearing you go up and down like that is really fun, I think, for a listener. It's fun for me to make it too. I appreciate it.

And I always think about the audience, like singing it back, like when we do eventually play this live in Japan or something and hearing everybody there. that high G will be really like people who miss it and do the E flat or hit the G but a little sharp like I want, you ever

notice like when you go to a Bruce Springsteen concert like not everybody there is a singer. I don't know if you knew that but it doesn't matter if like 50,000 people are singing off pitch because they're all going to, all those off pitch notes are going to meld together and create something. Create something together and

glue together. So I feel like we need to go back to the guitars a little bit. Because if people think of a Charlie Puth song, I feel like they think of keys. They think of perhaps some of the jazzy extended harmonies that you've been playing for us. So when this song starts, and we have first

that tremolo guitar playing the perfect fifth, and then this acoustic guitar playing that strumming pattern, I feel like it says something about maybe what you want to accomplish with this song. Because it's not your typical palate. I'd like for people not to almost like it immediately. Of course I want them to like it, but I'd like them to be unsure of how they feel about it.

Because it's not anything I've ever done before. And I'm not working with different producers. I'm the producer. I take pride in that. So I have to listen to other things and bands and how people are approaching music. It's almost like jaunting a little bit. Like, ooh, a new Charlie song.

A guitar? I don't even know how to play guitar. I would love to listen to the pre-chorus of Hero with you. So pre-chorus is introduction to the keys that you heard briefly in the intro. When I call you Alfred being fake. Doubles. My blood pressure elevates when I call you out for being fake and I don't want to be mean,

but I'm not gonna shut up. Lead on top of that. My blood pressure elevates when I call you for being fake and I don't want to be mean. Guitar. I'm not gonna shut up instead. I know who you really are and your so-called friends quotation marks. So that's Pre-Corus 1.

Then when you go to Pre-Corus 1, then when you go to Pre-Course two. My blood pressure elevates. There should be another element that you didn't hear. We got those. Yeah, a little dune. So you don't hear that in the first pre. This is stuff that only we care about.

But it creates an upward arc across the song. It rewards the listener for sticking around, really. I agree. It's like a role. roller coaster ride that you're just you know the guy's on his last shift and it's like sure ride it again you're like I'm really looking forward to going through the dinosaurs ass or something like I don't mouth oh and the ooze my blood pressure elevates when I call you up for being fake even tied harmonizer I know who you really are and your so called friends

The effects channel I don't want to make a scene You cut me off and that's when she said I don't That's the first ad lib you hear the Say it's when she said I don't That's just like little Subtality thing I did that in attention too Where the chorus just like a

Has just one ad lip going into it You just want attention you don't want my heart my heart Whatever I did at the time Yeah, you just wanted to touch your whole. What about that line your so-called friends quotation marks? I really responded to that. It's kind of like the non-grammatic. It's not super grammatically correct, but it just rhymed.

So we were rolling with it, Cash and I and John Byron, who I also wrote it with. What it really means is like those are your friends. I wanted to like visually like... No, it's very... It sounds like the transcript of a conversation. your so-called quotation marks, I think because it's not exactly grammatically correct, it kind of sticks in your brain. Yeah, you remember it better. This song is... That's that me espresso, maybe.

That's that me espresso, exactly. It's like, how many times have you heard a song and be like, oh, I know what they mean. It's like, it's how slang was invented. But this song is literally a song about a conversation by a hot tub. at like the only place where we could get away from all the goofball friends that they were hanging out with where I could just be like just 10 minutes of real like this is not you

I think Averill Levine wrote a song about that once like it's complicated I'm familiar yeah and it borders on like romantic sounding but it's really kind of like a heart to heart with like someone who I cared a lot about well I feel like the bridge deepens that feeling

because you might expect a bridge to sort of be more, even more maximal than everything you've heard, but this bridge does the opposite. And even I'm looking at the sound file now, and all of a sudden it's just two wave files or something. This doesn't even count. This is just the effects file. One, two.

Loving you ain't easy, but I'm never going to stop it. I know that night I lost my head and I was being out of pocket that I wasn't trying to start a fight or tell you how to live you. So the bridge breaks everything down. Final chorus builds everything up. Can we listen to the very end of the song? So the very end. It's kind of abrupt at the end.

It is because it's the conversation didn't really go as planned. So I want to kind of convey that emotion in the music a little bit. Well, I found myself wondering when I was listening, I was like, what's going to happen here? You know, it's sort of unfinished in a way. Unfinished business, well, the real answer is that an album will happen. That's good. That's good to know. You'll hear, like, actual, like, the B part of things and, like, recalls and stuff that

Taylor does really, really, really well. And, again, I was already working on music like this. But again, when she made that shout out, I was like, I have to go that route. And that shout out from Tortured Poets Department was, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist. Charlie Puth, do you agree with that assessment? If me being a bigger artist means I get to have even further reach than I already do to tell people to pick up an instrument and make a song

and not be discouraged if someone in their life is telling them that they can't make any art, if that means I can reach 10 more people, then I would like to be a bigger artist. I don't want to be a bigger artist to inflate my own ego. That's fine where it's at. Like I really actually don't do this for that. I do this to inspire people going to college, just getting started in music, and wanting to make their own music. Or even if it's not music, just to do something artistic with the right side of their brain.

Because I think it's kind of frowned upon, especially in America. I don't know why. It's just there are some great art schools, but there's, for whatever reason, it's not the important. subject matter to be talked about. Like what you do is a really important thing. You bring inspiration to your students and color the rest of their day and they'll succeed more

in their less artistic kind of class like math. If do people still do math, I never would say that. Presumably. Somewhere. If me being a bigger artist can inspire more kids and adults and whoever then I should be a bigger artist. Well, I ask that

perhaps somewhat cheekily, but I do sense that you're someone who doesn't crave the same exposure. And I feel like I have some evidence for that because so much of the work you do is behind the scenes. And you do a lot of collaborations and songwriting for other artists where you have to be sort of comfortable

not being the focus and sort of receding into the background. Yeah. Again, I don't strive to be a bigger artist to look like a cooler guy. I of course want to play, you know, I don't even know if that's true I don't know if I want to play like stadiums I just want to

inspire 80,000 people maybe not have them see me in the stadium but I'm sure do stadiums sound good when you play in them the acoustics are all over the place but I mean I wouldn't be opposed

but I just I know it sounds like I'm making it up but I really just do care about the listener and the person on the other side how does that desire to reach people manifest in some of the collaborations you've done, a few of which recently have been with prominent K-pop artists, Stray Kids, Chongkuk from BTS. Is that part of that same philosophy trying to work across genre, across like borders even?

Yeah, I'm working on a country record right now, not an album, but like a song. And more on that soon. But I just... Cowboy Charlie. Maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't be cowboy, Charlie, but I've had country songs out before.

I just think it's all, I think music is kind of genreless in a way. Well, take us to one of those collaborations, stray kids, Chunkuk, like, what is that? You're working maybe across even language at that point. So, like, how does that go down? Well, specifically for the stray kids record

that you just put on there, just such nice boys. They had never done a song entirely in English before. And Johnny Goldstein, who I produced the record with, came in with these kind of tribalish drums. And on the ride over, I was listening to their discography, and they have a lot to those tribal, like, trappish kind of drums. Because they dance way better than me, and they move on stage. Like, they put on a show. But I was thinking, like, what could there be, like, something like, like, R&B?

And like, almost like Jewel Santana. Like in slow motion for me, with like diminished chords. There we go. Against those. Yeah. And then when I heard, he brought those drums in. And then I just played that on like a kind of like a corg sounding guitar.

And then we switch at the very last minute, we switched the high hat pattern from going, we did it. Like a ghost town DJs kind of thing. And it brought me like to like the first time I like performed in Atlanta and how like different the audience was there, like how they were receiving the music there and then going out afterwards and then hearing. At night I think of you. And it's like jazz. Which is like a giant steps. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

It's all, music is all the same. So that's why I don't mind doing a K-pop song, then doing this kind of Taylor-inspired song, and then making a song like Lights Switch, which is kind of hyper-popping a way and then collaborating with the stray kids. And I just, I don't mind because it's music and I'm just happy to be there kind of thing.

Do you feel like you have to sort of, modulate your own desire for more complexity in music sometimes. This is something I think about just in a larger sense in pop music. How do you take your desire to play giant steps? And do you feel like you have to sometimes leave that at the door to create a pop hit? Do you know what I mean? I think it's just all depends on what kind of record. Okay.

Trying to make if you want to make, what do they call it, smooth jazz music, Which I actually, I like that channel on Sirius XM. That's like the first time I heard jazz with, there's this song by, I think, called The City by Paul. This guitarist Paul Brown. It's kind of corny. It's kind of vibey. And it went, very Windows XP sounding. But that's like the kind of record they were trying to make.

I didn't mean to call that record corny. Don't come from me, Paul Brown. But when I'm making my music, I want to try and say. sneak it in, but I don't even have to, like, really think about it anymore because it's just, like, kind of, like, in my DNA. And I, and I know when, I've practiced long enough to know when, you know, there's, there's too much icing on the cake. You don't want to just eat all the icing. You want to, like, actually enjoy the moist center. That is the new, the creamy nugut. Yeah, the creamy nugut crunch. You don't want to just have all, like, what would you rather have,

like, a bunch of sprinkles? Or do you want to, like, actually, like, have, like, the, lemon meringue tart in the middle. That's, I mean, that's fascinating. There's like a horrible way to answer that question. Just like, don't go over. No, that's, actually, that's a very satisfying answer. Because I do, I do

sometimes think of you as our man on the inside. And by our, I mean, the nerds, the music geeks, the people who can't get enough of this stuff. But you're in there. You're in the mix. I think everybody's a nerd, man. If you're not a nerd about music, you're a nerd about motors and cars.

And like, someone told me what a car starter was the other day. I just thought you just put your key in the car and starts. Apparently there's a whole mechanism that like, yeah, there are nerds. Everyone's a nerd. Everyone's past, because I think nerd has a negative connotation to it. I think it's just another way of saying that you're passionate about something. We're very clearly passionate about music, which is why we're here on a Thursday afternoon talking about stems and kick drums. So is there a difference between working on your own music and writing for a another artist in that sense too.

Do you feel like you bring a different set of skills to the table when you're writing for someone else, working with someone else? Writing for someone else for me is very fun. Because I get to like maybe pull out a couple more bag of tricks. Just like a... Go to your bag. Yeah. That like they maybe haven't used on their song. But it's vice versa too.

Like Sam Smith and I wrote. a song one time. No, it hasn't come out. But we wrote a song a very long time ago. And they came with nothing prepared. And I was very nervous because I was like, oh, I got to make a good impression. And they were like, let's just play some chords

and just see, let's just see what happens. I learned from that because I was so neurotic before going into every session, especially with like a superstar, like Sam. And it was the first time where I was, completely unprepared, but just relaxed and then ended up making a better song. So that's like a really significant thing that they in particular brought to me. And maybe I brought to them some more jazzy chords. So it kind of goes both ways. There's an exchange. That's collaboration.

So we've gotten to go deep under the hood to continue your interest in car starters. Yeah. I love cars now. Of hero. And it's it's wetted my appetite for the rest of the album it makes me excited and thanks taylor for a little boost in confidence it's great uh charlie thank you so much for taking us through this song uh brick by brick that was really fun absolutely anytime you want to do this we'll do it for we'll do 12 songs for the see you next week for the next song the next song next week it's going to be five and a half hours hope you don't have plans you're not leaving right

Stay with us. Friday night. This has been a blast. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you. Switched-on Pop is brought to you by Box Media Podcast Network. We're a production of Vulture. Rihanna Cruz is our producer. I'm Nate Sloan. I host the show with Charlie Harding. Iris Gottlie makes our illustrations.

Abby Barr is our community manager. Brandon McFarlane engineers the show and Art Chung is the editor. Everyone's coming out on stage and high-fiving each other. You can find more episodes anywhere. podcasts are in-house pianist is Charles Puth and we'll see you next week with a brand new episode. As always, thanks for listening. Copyright 2024.