The musician admits that sometimes a melody gets stuck in his head at the most intimate of moments.
Talk about an earworm you can't get away from! In a newly published chat with Interview Magazine, Charlie Puth admits that he once stopped having sex to jot down a melody he couldn't get out of his head.
The 31-year-old revealed that said melody ended up becoming the song "Marks On Your Neck" from his 2022 album CHARLIE. "Maybe I should have focused on the act a little bit more, but the melody just kind of popped into my head and I actually had stopped and recorded a little quick voice note and then had to get back into the act," he shared.
Like many of the other songs on the self-titled album, "Marks On Your Neck" was inspired by a significant moment in Puth's romantic past.
"I was getting over somebody, and what better way [to do that] than meet new people? It probably wasn't going to work out with this person and that was what I was energetically picking up, which is okay," he explained to the outlet. "It's all about the experience. And I remember waking up and looking at myself in the mirror, noticing these marks on my neck, and every day they'd heal and fade, but so would the person who put them on me. And we went our separate ways. I'm thankful for the experience and maybe they are as well, but I just thought it was interesting that a person can fade away at the same pace of the scars on your neck."
Puth's love life has taken a sweeter turn since then. The "Hilarious" singer made his red carpet debut with his girlfriend, Brooke Sansone, at the Pre-GRAMMY Gala & GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons earlier this year. The couple walked the red carpet for Clive Davis' iconic Pre-GRAMMY gala hand-in-hand and smiling sweetly at one another before heading inside the event, where they enjoyed performances by Lizzo, Jennifer Hudson and more.
Puth sparked speculation about his relationship with Sansone, a family friend, during the summer of 2022. The "Left and Right" singer finally confirmed their relationship via Instagram on his 31st birthday.
During an appearance on SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show in October, Puth was put in the hot seat over his relationship status. Asked by host Howard Stern whether he was single or with someone, Puth cautiously shared, "I'm with somebody now." Pressed further on whether he is in love, Puth responded, "Yeah, definitely."
Although Puth never mentioned Sansone by name, the singer revealed that his better half is "someone that I grew up with" in his small New Jersey hometown. "As my life gets more turbulent and I travel everywhere, it's nice to have someone close to you that you've known for a very long time," he said.
"She’s always been very, very nice to me," he continued. "And I would assume that when times inevitably are hard in the future, because what is life without valleys and peaks, she would be there for me as well."
Speaking with Interview, the musician also addressed how he used TikTok to fine-tune his music.
He explained, "The old TikTok for me was making music in front of people I didn't know in real life. He probably doesn't remember this, but Mike Will, the prolific record producer, when I first moved out to LA I asked him, 'How do you know if a record's going to do well?' He said he takes it to the strip club and they'll rent a studio in Atlanta, go to Blue Flame, and play the song they're working on. And if people aren't dancing in the way that they had hoped, they'll take it back to the studio and tweak it, and then go back to the strip club. I thought that was so ingenious and apparently, it's been done for years. And that's originally where I got the idea, in a virtual sense, to take these half-baked songs and gauge my fans' reactions. And if something doesn't feel exciting or it's not hitting enough, I'll slightly alter it in the hopes of getting a different reaction."
Despite jokes that his record label is behind Puth's sometimes outlandish antics online, the artist says his social presence is all him. "The label is definitely facilitating that as well. They're encouraging me, I should say," he added. "So I'm excited to be around people who care about the whole body of work."
During the Global Citizen Festival last September, Puth opened up to ET about creating his self-titled album while isolated during the pandemic, highlighting how it was an important factor in connecting with his fans.
"The whole point of this album was to have my fans feel like I wrote it with them, that's why I documented every step of the way. 12 songs that, due to the pandemic, I had to be in the studio by myself to make and a lot of conversations that I had with myself to come up with these songs, all documented on the internet," he shared. "I think I'll probably do the rest of my albums like this and I'd be interested to see other artists take the same approach as well."
RELATED CONTENT:
