Shawn Mendes called on his musical idol Justin Bieber to collaborate on a poignant new song, “Monster,” which details the pitfalls of superstardom.
“I think I was coming off the back of a couple of big songs and definitely just so driven by my ego and just feeling like something in this feels not right,” Mendes recently told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of the collaboration. “And it’s always resonated with me. This song has always resonated with me and it just never found its way out. And now all of a sudden I was listening to it one day, and I just started my relationship with Justin. It just started forming properly in the last three months. And I called him and I was like, ‘Look, I have this song. It’s kind of going there.’ We go there.”
“It’s about how society can put celebrities up on a pedestal and watch them fall and it seems to be this entertainment thing. And it’s hard,” he continued. “And his heart fell deep into it. And him and I, even yesterday, were on the phone for an hour and had the deepest conversation, I think, about so much. And it just felt really nice because it was a full circle moment for me, this guy who was the reason I started singing. I was nine when “One Time” came out, and I completely was all in.He was Elvis to me. And to come back around and to have this very human to human conversation with him and his truth to come into that song and my truth to be there, it feels like one of the most special songs I’ve ever wrote. And the more I listened to it and the deeper I get into it, this is not just about celebrities. This is the human experience.”
“Monster” follows Mendes’ previously-released track “Wonder,” and both will appear on his upcoming album Wonder, out December 4 via Island Records.
Watch the new video below.
