Meghan Trainor came out of nowhere ten years ago with a cheeky song that fueled a debate about body image and stayed at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for nearly two months.
“All About That Bass” became her calling card, a style of retro pop that she has continued to mine to this day with a wink and a smile. Over that time, she also got married, had two kids and turned 30.
“I’m 30 and thriving,” Trainor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a recent interview. “I’ve never looked better. I have better teeth. I’m aging backwards. I love all the love I’m getting with the anniversary of ‘All About That Bass.’ It’s very cool. I got to sing it with Kelly Clarkson!”
She has written many songs since “All About That Bass,” but none have had that zeitgeist-level impact.
“It’s wild,” Trainor said. “I’ll never understand it. I try to study that song. I can’t crack the code. I can get other hits but I can’t write another ‘Bass’.”
Now she’s touring on the back of her sixth studio album “Timeless” and will be at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in Alpharetta on Friday, Sept. 13. (Tickets at Livenation.com start at $35.30 on the lawn.)
This is Trainor’s first tour in seven-plus years and her first with two young children in tow. Clarkson, who has brought kids on her own tours in the past, gave Trainor advice: “Don’t try to be a hero. You can’t do all the fun mom things during the day or you’ll wipe yourself out.”
Trainor over the years has worked with everyone from Fifth Harmony and John Legend to Sabrina Carpenter and Atlanta’s own Teddy Swims in 2022 before he broke it big.
“He was already blowing up in my life,” she said. “My whole family loves him. When ‘Lose Control’ went No. 1, we all celebrated. My son is the reason for all his streams on YouTube. He watches them over and over again.”
Swims, she said, “is just realness, authentic. He is talented and kind and it all comes out in his music.”
Trainor also recently wrote a song for her friend Paris Hilton called “Chasin’,” a blend of pop and reggaeton. “I love and adore her,” she said. “I couldn’t believe she wanted to do this with me. It was a bucket list moment, to write for her.”
And earlier this year, she took out a full-page print ad in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Atlanta artist T-Pain thanking him for their unusual collaboration on her chipper doo-wop tune “Been Like This.”
“My manager and I kept throwing out ideas on what we could do for him that was special,” she said. “When someone thought of the newspaper ad, I wrote out the words. We wanted it to be big, bold and huge. It was the best thing we could do. He was stoked. I was happy. It got a lot of attention!”
She recently became a “Godmother” for a new Royal Caribbean Cruise called Utopia of the Seas and got to perform in an outdoor amphitheater on the ship over the summer. It was a test run for her tour.
“I was out there to prove to myself that I can be on a stage and be totally fine,” she said. “It was like 100 degrees. The hottest I felt in my whole life. I was dripping wet. I remember telling the dancers to take more breaks. We all got through it together.”
IF YOU GO
Meghan Trainor
6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13. Tickets start at $35.30. Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, 200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. livenation.com
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