I'm just growing so quickly, so my songs are quickly changing on me. But it's fine. I love them for what they are and what they were, to me.
— Shawn Mendes
I was an average student. I wasn't any standout. I remember when people started to know who I was and the label offers, people started to get a little weird and be weird around me.
Did people care about how a singer sounded live back in the day? I don't really feel like they did. Not everything was being filmed. Today, one huge mess-up, and millions are seeing it. There's a lot more on the line nowadays. We're so cautious and scared of messing up. It adds a lot of stress to a career.
Growing up in a suburban home, the world seems so massive to you. It seems like cities are so big and so far away, and there's so much in them. So your imagination runs wild, instead of when you are born in the middle of Manhattan, you'd know, like, that this is the biggest city.
I was super-obsessed with cover videos. When I was, like, 10, I would come home from school and watch them from 4 o'clock until 8 o'clock every night. I was so intrigued that people took these super-popular songs and did them their own way.
I work out every day.
I've always been really tall and lanky.
If I don't have cereal on the bus, I'm going to be really upset.
I'm a very spontaneous person. When I see something that might be fun or different, I will try it.
I don't want to just be a teenage star. I want to be known by parents, and I want them to go, 'Oh I love that song; he's really good for his age. My daughter loves him, but I love him, too.'
Island Records was the first record label to... acknowledge me. After that, quickly, Republic Records, and then Atlantic Records, Sony Records and Warner Bros. It was all the labels at once. It was absolutely insane, like, knowing that this many record labels were interested in me.
I loved Nashville. I was amazed by the whole place.
I carry around this little lion named Leo, which I've had for as long as I can remember.
Being 15, I feel like people want me to go down the Justin Bieber, Cody Simpson sort of genre.
Every time I write a song my approach changes.
There is such a hype and a big build up to me, and it's very hard to meet those expectations. That's been a big stress in my life.
You have to be careful not to make music something you don't want to do. Which happens. I've gotten off the road and been like, 'I hate it. I hate singing, I hate playing guitar.' Six days later, I'm in my bedroom singing at the top of my lungs because I love it so much.
I'm always upset about not doing things as good as I think I could have because I care.
I think I was just bored one summer afternoon, and I decided to post a little video of me singing and playing guitar out of tune.
Manuka honey is magic.
I'd rather sleep on the bus than in the hotel because I sleep way better on tour buses.
I really love listening to Hozier. He's great.
I like dancers. I have a thing for girls who dance.
My first Vine I really just posted out of spontaneity.
I'm not the best singer in the world; I'm just good at picking up what I want to sound like.
I'm all over the place with muffins. Carrots are great. Banana, chocolate chip, they rock, too.
I think when you have raw emotion in a song, it makes it great.
There's nothing that scares me more than, like, being in the ocean by myself.
I used to write stories. Handwriting stories in school were a big deal for me. That's kind of what I did.
There are times when I'm super-overwhelmed, and everything feels like it's hitting me in the face at once, but I think what's keeping me calm, and who I am by staying true to myself, is my whole family being so supportive and keeping me grounded. They treat me the exact same way they treated me years and years ago.
Ed Sheeran wrote his songs, so I wanted to write my own songs.
Being a sex symbol isn't cool unless you're in love with a girl, and she calls you a sex symbol.
I really love going back home. I think going back to a nice, relaxed little town is the best way to do it.
Just the fact that a thousand people in front of me were ready to hear me sing was one of the best feelings I can think of.
I believe vitamin C can fix everything.
People made fun of my skinny legs.
I work so hard to make that sure I'm successful. If you're positive and really excited and enthusiastic about what you're doing, it's going to happen, and it's going to happen big time.
I like funny girls.
I always think, what type of 11th grader would I be if I was still at school? Or if I was home all the time, would I be at the gym 24/7? Would I be as good at guitar? I know I wouldn't be as mature as I am.
I promise you, if you look at YouTube and see some of my first covers, you will hear that I don't sound good. But I was so obsessed with it and wanted so much to be good at it that I forced myself to figure out what sounds right and what sounds wrong.
To be honest, I've only been to one concert, and it was Aerosmith. Aerosmith and Slash.
The first year I started hockey, I didn't know how to skate, so I got on the ice with all of the hockey players, and we were doing drills where we had to go backwards in figure eights. And I could not skate, and I just kept falling on my butt, and it was very embarrassing.
I'm not a rapper.
I feel like every time I write a song, it feels like the first time I wrote a song. It's just as hard; it doesn't get easier, but that's why I love it: because it's a challenge every time. I also feel like I'm learning new ways.
