Charlie Puth Shares the New Musical Inspirations Found on ‘CHARLIE’

Savas Abadsidis October 7, 2022

Pitch-Perfect Charlie Puth Sat Down with The Spout Podcast to Reveal His All-Time Favorite NSYNC Song, How Records from Megadeth and Metallica Inspired Him, His Future on Broadway, and Ultimately Created His Latest Album About Himself

Grammy-nominated Charlie Puth has released his highly-anticipated third album, Charlie, a 12-track LP he self-produced while documenting the whole process on TikTok.

The singer joined Host Erik Zachary on The Spout Podcast to share the various musical inspirations found on the new album, how TikTok allowed him to show his real self, plus he admits the one thing he’s really tired of being asked. Puth explains, “This is the dichotomy smudged together album. You take a record like Light Switch and you listen to Chop Suey: a record that came out in 2005 by System of a Down, produced by Rick Rubin. It’s almost, like, too fast in an area and then goes half-time and I was always fascinated with how fast that record was and how it was able to maintain its energy by going half-time.”

He adds, “I get inspired by records from like Megadeath and Metallica that were almost too fast, but maintained an energy when they slowed it down. I took that facet and then take something like light switches, and take things that I know of and things that I’m not super familiar with but want to learn more about, and stick it together, and out comes Light Switch.”

Puth tells The Spout Podcast of his desire to make the album interactive by creating “a lot of pop-sonic cues.”

“Maybe I’ll make a Broadway play one day because you hear a lot of light switch sounds and tip-toeing in Broadway plays,” jokes Puth.

Although he does admit if he were to choose a career other than music, he would turn to film as he has found so much success creating his videos for TikTok. “TikTok, amongst all its controversy, really has allowed people on the internet to show their real self. It’s allowed me to show my real self. I can feel that I’ve had the most ears on my music most recently because I’m just being my real self. Which again is what this album is, it’s myself.”

When asked what is the one thing he is tired of being asked, Puth quipped, “I want people to stop wondering why I post what I post that has nothing to do with my music. I work out, like sue me. These training sessions are expensive. I’m not keeping it all to myself.”

The Spout Podcast is a weekly podcast where famous people spout about more than they are famous for. Each episode of the Spout Podcast gives artists a chance to have a meaningful conversation with one of Spout’s influencers/hosts about a topic that they personally feel passionate about beyond their music.