Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Spotify
By Opt LeDonne
As the pop star Shawn Mendes unleashes his fourth studio album Surprise, buoyed by its eponymous single, into the arena currently (December 4), it’s sure to hear a natural continuation of his weird and wonderful musical point of view: raw, emotional lyrics complemented by catchy, guitar-ahead, and rarely swelling production. It’s a mode Mendes has sophisticated over the route of his entire discography, the majority of which became once crafted by a tight, integral neighborhood of co-writers: Teddy Geiger, Geoff Warburton, and Scott Harris. Harris, a Long Island native, chanced on his first model of chart-topper pickle with his co-write on “Don’t Let Me Down,” which The Chainsmokers and Daya took to No. 3 in 2016. He’s since penned hits with Niall Horan, P!nk, Julia Michaels, and extra.
But his work with Mendes has endured and grown since they at first linked up in 2014, participating on the hovering ballad “Lifetime of the Occasion” and, later, the pop-rock grandiosity of “Care for You Better.” His songs helped remove 2018’s Shawn Mendes album to No. 1. Now, Surprise finds Harris the lone holdover of Shawn’s core songwriting neighborhood. “I judge me and Shawn are so originate with every diversified, and that lends itself to it being so excellent within the music,” Harris tells MTV Info. The outcome is an album of longing that’s moreover now not apprehensive to trip as rotund as it needs to. “Lots of this document became once written both pre-quarantine and for the length of, nonetheless there are no doubt songs that made [their] device onto Surprise about isolation, pausing, and being alone. Even with the song ‘Surprise,’ writing that on FaceTime and bringing it into the studio in an generation of Covid no doubt affected that document and the components just some of the lyrics spilled out.”
As listeners commence as a lot as explore the arena of Surprise, MTV Info spoke with Harris about what it’s like watching Mendes grow from a younger Vine performer into a world celeb, how writing for Mendes can double as a therapy session, and what the creative task became once within the aid of its key tracks.
MTV Info: You and Shawn trip device aid. Are you able to endure in recommendations the first time you met and labored collectively?
Harris: We met when Shawn became once recording 2014’s “Lifetime of the Occasion,” which I co-wrote. His A&R played him the demo, he liked it and lower the song, and from there, we began writing collectively. He became once 15 at the time and I became once 27. Shawn became once a younger songwriter, so I became once showing him neutral a runt bit how to play guitar, and he became once showing me recommendations of what he became once writing at the time, and we inspired every diversified at that very second. The foundation form of never went away. I attain feel like I became once showing him the ropes as an older brother and within the identical sense [he was] showing me the ropes as a younger brother.
MTV New: So after working with Shawn for see you later, with a challenge like Surprise, how attain you trip, “OK, let’s to find to work on a wholly diversified album from scratch?”
Harris: It’s a diversified relationship. We had been talking about Surprise the day the old album came out [2018’s Shawn Mendes]. It begins with this rapport we have where we’re consistently sending every diversified shriek notes or songs from Spotify that encourage every diversified. We’d send every diversified all diversified kinds of shit, like Beatles songs or Pink Floyd or Queen. We had been moreover being attentive to Paul Simon songs and the Seaside Boys. We moreover went through a ton of diversified phases where we are being attentive to a bunch of ’80s music at one point, the form of stuff I’ve been being attentive to eternally, and these are just some of the artists who inspired the album. Creatively, it’d unravel from there.
MTV Info: What became once the timeline of the production task? Own been you polishing stuff up unless only within the near previous?
Harris: It’s been wrapped for just a few months. With me and him, it never stops. About a of the recommendations we began straight after the closing album grasp wrapped and became recommendations which grasp made their device onto this album, along with recommendations that came about just a few months ago. With “Surprise,” we’d began just a few of it on FaceTime and would occasion to flesh it out. One of the distinguished earliest songs became once “Elevated,” which we wrote in his dressing room after one amongst his reveals at Barclays Center. Sooner than and after the teach, me and Shawn had been strumming it, and the following day I endure in recommendations him coming to my condominium, and we had been form of banging it out like, “Oh shit, that is undoubtedly excellent.” We rented this studio down the block from my condominium and hashed it out from there. I wasn’t even sure it became once going to assemble this challenge, on the opposite hand it felt so strong and form of kept making its device through the total hoops. To for the time being it’s one amongst my favorites.
MTV Info: Used to be there a creative inspiration in phrases of the occasions of 2020 within the work?
Harris: I love a song we did referred to as “Call My Web site visitors.” It’s an anthemy-form document and it’s form of about Shawn lacking his pals and attempting to come aid aid down to earth. Truly, all he wished to attain, as he says, is seek at the moon with his pals and smoke weed. Most ceaselessly you’re running all one of many easiest ways through the arena and likewise you accurate want your homies. I judge for myself I will no doubt say to lacking these instances. It’s a call to that belief, and it feels undoubtedly particular.
MTV Info: So many diversified pop stars grasp songwriting sessions with hundreds of folks and they’re in and out of a million rooms. But Shawn so normally works with you and (previously) Teddy Geiger and Geoff Warburton. Why attain you deem, from his point of view, having a tight neighborhood became once and is so integral to his creative task?
Harris: It no doubt stems from an emotional build. Comfort is key within the songwriting neighborhood; in case you’re cheerful you feel that you just must well presumably undoubtedly be your self and be excellent, especially for the music Shawn has made and continues to assemble. Being excellent and originate like that takes numerous time and it takes numerous energy. As every other of going spherical and doing The Relationship Sport with all of these pop writers and producers, that you just must well presumably accurate teach up on any given day and spill your coronary heart out and manufacture versus starting from zero. I will’t speak for Teddy and Geoff, nonetheless I do know for Shawn and me, with the exception of collaborators, we’re pals. We focus on non-music stuff the total time and most ceaselessly it dips its device into the songs and most ceaselessly it doesn’t. But both comfort and vibing musically with one other individual is laborious to procure.
As an instance, when it came to writing a song like “In My Blood,” we went in pondering, how will we teach the arena how Shawn is undoubtedly feeling? How will we now not write a love song? How attain we take care of this song as some manufacture of legend where we teach Shawn has apprehension accurate like somebody else? How attain we assemble all of it now not accurate I equivalent to you, I equivalent to you, I equivalent to you? But that accurate form of accurate stems from any deep therapy session we had. We would been talking about apprehension and how most ceaselessly it appears like too noteworthy, and we came up with that runt riff. Me, Geoff, and Teddy ran with that belief. On the time, we didn’t perceive it became once going to be the debut single unless 60 or 70 percent through the album.
MTV Info: It became once moreover you, Shawn, Teddy, and Geoff who concocted what could well be a sport-changer in his belief as an “adult” artist, “Care for You Better.” Are you able to remove me into that room?
Harris: I went on a outing to South The US and became once being attentive to deal of Vampire Weekend, so I came aid with a bunch of irregular riffs and one amongst them became once segment of the “Care for You Better” riff. We then had two days within the studio; we wrote “Care for You Better” one day and a song referred to as “Persistence” the diversified day and we weren’t sure which one became once better. They had been both electric guitar demos at the time and we undoubtedly loved both of them. Lyrically, we had been being attentive to The Police and talking about stories in Shawn’s existence and came up with that form of thought. It made its device through the total album task as an unproduced demo. But one day, Teddy reproduced it, and we had been like, “Wait, that is the most straight forward song we have!” and it form of went from there.
MTV Info: You’ve had a entrance-row seat to Shawn’s not likely upward thrust and has viewed his existence trip from in model child to a world celeb. What has it been want to look his existence evolve into what it is currently?
Harris: I endure in recommendations growing up wondering about folks’s rises to popularity and it’s not likely to look all of it unfold. I endure in recommendations him pronouncing things like, “Man, if I will solely to find this opening slot for Taylor Swift I’ll be excellent.” Watching these runt milestones and watching him step on every like neutral a runt ladder has been astonishing to hunt.
MTV Info: As any individual so shut, what did you deem of Shawn’s most up-to-date Netflix documentary In Surprise?
Harris: I judge it’s a undoubtedly excellent invitation into the arena of Shawn that folk don’t know. Even getting recommendations from my pals and household, folks clearly listen to those songs we created collectively nonetheless that is the first time they’re seeing Shawn as a true human being versus a pop star on the radio. You can look he’s a undoubtedly excellent dude and he’s emotional and he’s bought feelings. He gets lonely and comfy like all people else.
