Shawn Mendes says living with Camila Cabello and her family in Miami earlier this year made him reflect on the life he once had in Canada.
“I [was able to] have a routine, watch a movie nightly with family, do the dishes, stuff that sounds pretty mundane, but actually... when you’re living in a hotel room, you never do laundry,” he told British GQ.
The 22-year-old singer recalled sitting down in the laundry room one day to take in the smell – and feeling like a boy back in his family's Pickering, Ont. home.
Mendes’ early success meant he spent a lot of time not being a typical teenager, so it’s no surprise he refers to missing friends on his new album Wonder, out Dec. 4.
The title track includes the lyrics “I wonder what it's like to be my friends / Hope that they don't think I'll forget about them” and on “Call My Friends,” he sings “I should call my friends and go get high / I need a vacation from my life.”
Mendes told British GQ: “My friends were back in Toronto getting high, partying or whatever. And I just felt like... damn. I don’t know what you have to write about if you’re missing out on it all the time."
Elsewhere in the interview, Mendes talks about finding his authentic self. He said the songs on Wonder were not crafted with the fear of whether people will like them.
“It’s a s***ty way to make art,” he explained. “To make art in order to have people like it and purchase it becomes a very stressful and hard thing.”
Mendes added: “To have to be someone you’re not, to the whole world, is horrible. And I know how difficult it is to be authentic. I can speak to you clearly because I’m not dancing around my real self. I’m just being me with you.
“And that’s beauty. And that’s success.”