Grammy winner and pop star Meghan Trainor says her life didn’t end after having her children. In fact, her boys Riley, 3, and Barry, 1, were the biggest inspiration for her newest album “Timeless.” The two are currently on the road with Trainor for the “Timeless” tour and will be there when she performs at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre on Oct.
2. “Yes, life is all about them now, but also it's about making the best version of me for them, so I can take care of them the best I can,” Trainor says. Trainor released the deluxe version of her album “Timeless” in August.
The album draws on her experiences as a new mother and wife, who is also juggling stardom. It celebrates Trainor’s musical influences with hints of bebop, funk and R&B shining through her pop-forward, bubbly lyricism. Her song “Criminals” is currently going viral as the theme song on the Netflix miniseries “The Perfect Couple.
” Although Trainor wrote the song six years ago, she’s happy it’s finally having its moment in the spotlight. She started working on the other songs for “Timeless” about a year ago, 11 days after having a C-section with her youngest, Barry. Looking back on the album’s creative process, Trainor says her kids both influenced her new music and helped her decide which songs would make the album cut.
During bath time, Trainor would sing her new songs to her sons to see which ones they gravitated toward. If they remembered the song after she sang the second chorus, Trainor says she knew she had a potential hit. Riley fell in love with songs like “Bestie” and “Crushin’” early on, and Trainor would dance with him while they sang them together.
She’d cry as she swayed back and forth with her son, who’s love for outer space inspired her song “To the Moon.” Some of Trainor's biggest fans are kids, and she says she recognizes the influence she's had. Her debut single in 2014, “All About That Bass,” was the best-selling song released by a female artist in the 2010s in the U.
S. Even 10 years after its release, Trainor says she’s had parents tell her how their kids took their first step and hit their first dance moves to “All About That Bass.” “That was their first favorite song,” she says.
“It's really magical when the babies like it. You know, it's going to be big.” The song also celebrated body positivity and established Trainor as an advocate for the youth who gravitated to it.
On tour for the first time in seven years, Trainor says she’s excited to be back performing new music for the fans she’s watched grow up, and she says she hopes to create more core memories with fans and their families on her “Timeless” tour. During every performance, Trainor says she asks who’s at their very first concert. Every night in every city, it sounds like everyone in the building is screaming at the top of their lungs.
Childhood was where Trainor’s love for music began. Her father loved old-school R&B like James Brown; Earth, Wind and Fire; and Stevie Wonder. However, Trainor’s mother loved pop music, and she had an uncle from Trinidad and Tobago who was a soca singer, a genre infusing African, Caribbean and South Asian rhythms.
All of it influenced Trainor’s foundation as a songwriter and singer. She says she still listens to soca music before her performances because good music invites good feelings that she hopes to share with the audience. “Music can be medicine and it helps me with my insecurities, my doubts or my conflicts in life,” she says.
“When it helps other people, it's just like an extra gift and feels like I'm a superhero.” Trainor says she’s grown a lot since “All About The Bass” first climbed the charts and understands the importance of taking care of herself. Weekly therapy sessions are a priority, and she takes antidepressants as a part of her mental and emotional self-care regimen.
Now 30, Trainor is manifesting her best future life by doing the work in the present. “I've heard 30s is your best (decade) and, so far, it is,” she says. “It's like you finally care a little bit less about what everyone thinks, and you're just working on yourself.
” Still figuring out how to navigate her changing life and all its moving pieces, Trainor takes her influence as a pop star seriously. As she continues to grow, Trainor hopes to create more music that inspires music lovers of all ages and that instills resilience in the hearts of young listeners. "Never stop," she says.
"Never give up when someone tells you no. Use that as fuel and just keep going.".
