5 Things You Didn't Know About 'All About That Bass' Singer Meghan Trainor
— -- intro:Numerous female singers have dominated the charts in 2014 with songs about feeling confident and self-empowered.
One of those women was 20-year-old Meghan Trainor.
Her debut single, “All About That Bass,” was an unapologetic anthem to the booty and a toast to full-bodied women. The song has topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts longer than any other female artist’s song this year.
Trainor shot to fame in an incredibly short amount of time, going from a high schooler in Nantucket to performing in front of a massive audience in just a few years. The singer sat down to talk about her journey for the ABC News special, “The Year: 2014,” hosted by Robin Roberts.
Here a few things fans might not have known about the pop star.
quicklist:1title:She Wrote Her First Song at Age 7text:Trainor has been focused on music since she was little, and started playing around with writing songs when she was just 7 years old.
“My first song I was about how happy I was that my aunt married this Trinidadian man named Burton Toney,” Trainor said laughing. “You know, ‘Heart and Soul’ on the piano? I just wrote lyrics over that 'because that's all I could play, and I thought I was a star.”
quicklist:2title:She Was in High School When She Got Her First Publishing Dealtext:Trainor said her parents were very supportive of her pursuing music, and would take her and her brothers on family vacations to cities hosting music conventions so she could perform in public.
“So my brothers ... went to the zoo and had [a] backstage VIP pass and all that cool stuff, and I was with my father going around showing people my songs and being like, ‘I produced this myself and I wrote it in my bedroom,’” Trainor said.
When she was around 17 years old, Trainor said country music publisher Big Yellow Dog discovered her at a songwriting convention and flew her to Nashville to audition for them. They officially signed her when she turned 18.
“I was in high school when I signed my publishing deal. It was hilarious,” Trainor said. “I was with my friends and at lunchtime I left, like, midday of school, I left. My dad picked me up. We went to the bank, and I got a girl to officially stamp [the deal].”
quicklist:3title:When Writing ‘All About That Bass,’ She Didn’t Expect It to Be a Hit text:Trainor said she and producer Kevin Kadish came up with “All About That Bass” on a random day working together in the studio.
“I was real nervous. I was just trying to impress him... And he had a title, ‘All Bass, No Treble,’” she said. “And I said, ‘we should do it like that because it's, like, swag. It's cool. It's what us kids say.’ He's like, ‘Down, that's awesome.’”
While working on the song, Trainor said she and Kadish kept cracking up over the lyrics, such as “I’m bringing booty back/Go ahead and tell them skinny b-----s that.”
“After the ‘skinny b-----s’ line we were like, ‘No one is going to hear this. We'll never make money off this. That's fine,’” she continued. “But I wrote it to because I'm so sassy on the microphone, and I had to learn how to be that sassy girl in real life… I wanted to be all about my curves and my body. And now I finally am, and I'm much happier.”
quicklist:4title:She and Her Producer Wrote ‘All About That Bass’ in 45 Minutestext:“I'm a very fast writer,” Trainor said. “Some people like it, some people don't, because they can't keep up or something… But [producer Kevin Kadish is] very fast too. Our next single, ‘Lips are Moving,’ we wrote in eight minutes, which is ridiculous.”
quicklist:5title:She’s a Fan Girl for Sam Smith and Taylor Swifttext:One of the celebrities she was most excited to meet was singer Sam Smith, Trainor said.
“Sam Smith was one of those because ... I listened to his album hundreds and hundreds of times, and the fact that he's actually a really cool dude and I can call him a friend now is amazing,” she said.
And the celebrity she is still dying to meet?
“I haven't met Taylor Swift, and I really want to because I'm a huge fan,” she said. “I think she's the last person that I really fan girl over and haven't got to meet.”
