When Taylor Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, the album’s title track had a line few saw coming: “We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” No one was more surprised to hear this than Charlie Puth, whose career has consistently straddled the line between outright pop stardom and behind-the-scenes wizardry. Puth’s breakout single, 2015’s inescapable “See You Again,” would lead to his first album, Nine Track Mind, and more inescapable bops, including the Selena Gomez duet “We Don’t Talk Anymore.” In addition to releasing his own music — including his most recent album, 2022’s maximalist Charlie — Puth co-writes for other artists, having contributed his catchy pop hooks and jazzy chords to the likes of Jason Derulo, Katy Perry, and the Kid Laroi.
Though it’s been two years since Puth’s last album, he’s stayed busy in 2024, guesting on tracks by BTS’s Jungkook and Stray Kids, as well as recording more solo material. But Puth wasn’t planning to release his own music until Swift made her unexpected shout-out. With her declaration still ringing in his ears, he decided to drop “Hero,” both the first single from his next album and a new direction for Puth, who uses acoustic guitars and hushed vocals to generate a narrative around hard conversations.
“I wanted it to be almost like I didn’t know how to sing a little,” Puth tells me about his approach on “Hero.” “The message is about a really heavy thing that I experienced. So why not kind of take the piss out of it?”
How did you land on the concept of “Hero”?
Lyrically, it’s kind of the opposite of being a hero. It’s about approaching someone who may be in denial — you’re close with them and they kind of drifted away and got into bad habits. Then when you reach out to them, they’re like, “I don’t need your help. I don’t need someone to preach to me right now.” A.k.a., I don’t need a hero. I wanted it to feel like, “I have to have an uncomfortable conversation with you.” But I’m not going to say, “I want to be there for you.” It’s going to be, “I want to stop by and play it cool.”
One of the reasons why I got really excited when Taylor literally wrote my name in her song, I had made “Hero” three weeks before that had happened. And I was kind of unsure about it. Do people want to hear this from me? Or do they want to just have 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 one of the best at that, if not the best. I was inspired by that. When she shouted me out, I was like, “I should probably put the song out that kind of takes that formula a bit.”
Though the song uses these hushed vocals, it has a really hooky chorus too. Hearing you go up and down like that in your falsetto is fun.
It’s fun for me too. I always think about the audience singing it back when we eventually play it live, and hearing everybody sing that high G will be really … Ever notice when you go to a Bruce Springsteen concert, not everybody there is a singer? I don’t know if you knew that [laughs]. But it doesn’t matter if 50,000 people are singing off pitch because all those off-pitch notes are going to glue it together.
When fans think of a Charlie Puth song, they often think of a piano, some jazzy harmonies. But when “Hero” starts, we have a guitar playing. I feel like that says something about what you wanted to accomplish with this single, because it’s not your typical palette.
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. 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 how people are approaching music. I go on the Lorem playlist and I’m thinking to myself, Why don’t I ever reach for music influences like this? Then I start to. You know mk.gee? I think he’s fantastic. Super talented. [Charlie starts singing mk.gee’s “Candy.”] Or R&B in the ’90s — Lisa Stansfield, Janet, C&C Music Factory. Why can’t I make something like that that my fans and people will listen to? It’s almost jarring. “Ooh, a guitar in a new Charlie song?” I don’t even know how to play guitar.
What does not knowing how to play an instrument unlock for you?
Just curiosity. When I heard Jack [the guitar player] play those chords, I had the whole melody mapped out in my head. When I start a song, everyone’s like, “Okay, so what key should we do?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” I prefer starting a song with an instrument I don’t know how to play or not even an instrument. That’s why my whole shtick on the internet about the bird tweeted a D-sharp. I actually go by those rules and try and find sounds that aren’t instruments to try and make a song because it just unlocks a different part of your mind. And then when you do sit down at the piano or the guitar one day and you decide to write a song, I just feel like your mind’s much more colorful. That’s how I wrote “See You Again.” “See You Again” started with a piano, and I probably hadn’t written a song on piano for maybe a year.
What’s it like figuring out these melodies in your own music and writing for another artist?
Writing for someone else is very fun. I get to pull out a couple more bags of tricks they maybe haven’t used on their songs. Sam Smith and I wrote a song one time. It hasn’t come out. I was very nervous. I was like, “Oh, I got to make a good impression.” They came with nothing prepared. They were like, “Let’s just play some chords and let’s just see what happens.” I learned from that because I was so neurotic going into every session, especially with a superstar like Sam, and that was the first time where I was completely unprepared. But relaxing ended up making a better song.
Let’s go back to “Hero.” Tell me about the line “your so-called friends, quotation marks.”
It’s not super grammatically correct, but it just rhymes. So we were rolling with it.
It sticks in your brain. Like “That’s that me, espresso.”
Exactly. How many times have you heard a song and been like, “Oh, I know what they mean.” It’s how slang was invented. This song is about a serious conversation by a hot tub, the only place where we could get away from all the goofball friends that they were hanging out with, where I could just be real for ten minutes: “This is not you.” Avril Lavigne wrote a song about that once, “Complicated.”
You start this story about talking to your friend in “Hero,” but the song does end abruptly.
It is because the conversation didn’t really go as planned. So I want to convey that emotion in the music. Unfinished business.
Well, the real answer is that an album will happen and you’ll hear more. You’ll hear the actual B part of things — stuff that Taylor does really, really, really well.
Do you think you should be a bigger artist?
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 it means I can reach ten 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. I’m fine where it’s at.
I asked that somewhat cheekily, but I do sense that you’re someone who doesn’t crave the same exposure as Taylor.
I don’t strive to be a bigger artist to look like a cooler guy. Of course I want to play … well, I don’t even know if I want to play stadiums. I just want to inspire 80,000 people, maybe not have them see me in the stadium. Do stadiums sound good when you play in them? The acoustics are all over the place. But, I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed.
