Meghan Trainor's "dream" is to be as successful as Ed Sheeran.
Meghan Trainor
The 24-year-old singer and songwriter has penned tracks for the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Fifth Harmony and Jason Derulo and though it "breaks [her] heart" giving away the songs she's written, she wants to be as prolific as the 'Shape of You' hitmaker, who has written for the likes of One Direction, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz, she said: "I have a lot of extra songs from this album and it breaks my heart that we have to let some go. But I'm always looking out for new homes for them. My mum is on the mission, she's like 'Zara Larsson should sing this one!'"
"I'm always looking out for people to sing my songs, that's the dream. To be like Ed Sheeran."
The 'No Excuses' singer admires Ed and his instinctive way of knowing how to craft a radio-friendly hit.
She explained: "He gets it. He gets what radio needs and what everyone wants and that's something that I try to do too, thinking about how to make impressive music that translates on the radio but is also what the kids want to hear.
"There's a lot of politics and rules for the radio, and streaming these days they're like 'Please keep it at this tempo because then it will play forever' even if you don't want to do that tempo. But Ed Sheeran gets it and when I heard Shape Of You come out I was like 'well done. You got it'."
And although Meghan is influenced by Ed, she joked that she inspired him to release his popular ballad 'Perfect' after he thanked her for keeping "soulful" music alive.
She said: "And now this ballad - 'Perfect'- at first I didn't know because I thought it was too many words and I couldn't remember it right away but after hearing it over and over on the radio, I'm like 'Oh it's perfectly written and that's exactly what we need.'
"What's crazy is I remember he came up to me and said 'thanks for bringing soulful ballads back because I feel like I'm going to lose them' and now I hear this song and I'm like 'oooh, did I inspire you Ed Sheeran?' [Laughs] I mean I didn't at all, but maybe he had that song in his pocket and he was like, 'let's do this'."
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