Charlie Puth Teases National Anthem Performance, Talks Baby & More! | On Air with Ryan Seacrest

He's got new stuff coming our way. Charlie Puth is with us this morning. Hello, everybody. Charlie, it's nice to see you. It's nice to see you. Wow, I got such a blast of nostalgia when you played See You Again, because I don't know if you remember, that was the first bit of a promo I did. It was your show. Yes, I do remember. We actually have the video, which we can intercut into this to go back and see all of our looks. And then I eventually got it. It's a soundtrack to people's lives, to yours as well. When I play this, for example, what do you think about? I remember seeing you at the gym. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember we were working out at this wonderful gym on Beverly, and you came in with a hat that said Attention. And I had just played you the record. It was like a week before. It was probably like a huge – my record label was like, make sure you don't play anybody this in the course I play this. This is Ryan Seacrest. And you came in with an Attention hat the next day. I was like, this guy is my number one fan. I have all of your merch. I have it all. I have the What's Clever hat coming soon to a gym near you as well. We're going to send you every color, every album variant to everybody. Let's just run it. Charlie Puth is here. Let's just run through. Congratulations on what's happening in your life. I know you're soon to be a dad. I think I texted you not knowing if you were or not yet. Did you notice that? You know everything. You know everything before anybody. The big thing that we're waiting on now, and this is kind of crazy. I don't know how you time this, but the baby may very well come the day the album comes out. Aww. In Aries. It's just how do you time that? It's very serendipitous. Only you who know all the architecture of music and album release strategy could pull that off. But I do think that in the world, the universe sends us signals and signs about really pivotal and seminal moments in our life, and the fact that it's a possibility is a sign. That's just a sign. Tanya, I remember you telling me that. I used to not believe in that stuff, but it's very evident now. I am the happiest I've ever been, and I'm so glad that music finally kind of aligns perfectly in my life. Because it always felt like I had my musician life and my regular life, but now it feels very woven into each other. Well, as big things happen in your life, I feel like these things about the universe and signs and symbolism, they become more and more prevalent. And one of the big things you're about to do that we just learned about this week is the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah. I'm working on the arrangement in my head right now. That's a controversial thing, right? How much can you toy with the arrangement? Right. There's an expectation, but you've got to make it your own. I think it's going to be really good. I don't know why. Well, I know why, because it's going to be really good, and I have some wonderful musicians playing on the biggest stage in the world with me. But somebody told me this. My local newspaper, the Star-Ledger in New Jersey told me, well, not told me. I think my aunt sent me a little, you know how all your aunts and uncles cut out newspapers and send them to you? And I found out that I am the second New Jersey native to sing the national anthem, the first one being 30 years ago, the first person to do it was Whitney Houston from New Jersey. Wow. I want to have a little... That's the best one in existence, in my opinion, and the Chris Stapleton one as well. But I want mine to kind of be a nod to Whitney Houston. Well, that's a beautiful approach. I am drawn into and get chills and feel so much when I hear the national anthem anytime. But certainly in that moment, in that game, how do you balance the overwhelming emotion that you might be feeling just before you start, during the performance, and knowing the scale of that moment in the audience watching? For me, specifically, and maybe true for other singers and musicians alike, time is frozen whenever I'm performing. Whatever the subject matter of the song is, whether I wrote the song or not, time stands still. And in that moment, it is just about delivering the song in the way that it's supposed to be delivered. And then, after the song is done, and the whole of the parade, then it's going to be a wave of crying and emotions. I'm going to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. That's usually the progression. Is there a deep configuration to breath control in the last moments of that song? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely there is. You have to figure, and the best way I can describe it without turning this into a Professor Pooh thing, because that's all over the... I guess... Oh, thank you. It's one of the hardest songs to sing. If you sing it and deem it, which is... The lowest note is here. I'll show it visually if anybody can see me. And the highest note goes above this zoom screen. It goes all the way to an A. So you have to have built-in range, which I'm fortunate enough to have. But then, you are singing in front of 300 million people. So that's also setting in as well. But I think I'm going to get lost in the music. And we have a choir and a whole orchestra behind us. I'm really proud of this arrangement that we're putting together. Charlie Puth will be performing the National Anthem. Make sure you check that out. Now, March also shaping up to be a big month for you in so many ways, including this new album, Whatever's Clever, coming out March 27th. How have you approached this? What's been the focus of this album for you, Charlie? It was very cathartic. I had to kind of put music, like the act of making music, to the backseat. And I had to put real-life experience first, which is usually reversed for me. And I've spoken to you about this before. It's usually, and it is even documented, the melody, and I'm trying not to trip over my words here, but the melody and the beat, and the music comes first, and then I figure out what I'm saying. I basically did it in reverse. I figured out what I wanted to sing, what I wanted to say, and then the music came. And it sounds a little anticlimactic when I put words to it, but the result is a very different sounding album for me. Is that like walking backwards on the treadmill at an incline? Yeah, but you're still getting, but it always goes back to working out with us. But that's a good analogy because you're still getting a little workout. You're just using it different. Charlie Puth with us. He's experiencing some birds chirping as he wakes up this morning, which is such a beautiful, peaceful sound for us to hear. I love it. You are a perfectionist. Well, you have in the past been a perfectionist. You have, this is what I have gleaned from you because I understand this in similar ways for myself, is that it's hard for me to see always the things that worked. I always want to focus on the thing that didn't work. Well, I need to take my own advice, but I wrote this song for a friend who made a series of mistakes, not to air out their business, but it's definitely a sentiment that everybody could relate to. Just because you made a series of mistakes, they all led towards something. They all led towards something great. Just because something's not working out at this very moment doesn't mean that it's not going to work out in the future. But again, at risk of sounding hypocritical, I rarely follow that advice. It's weird to hear myself sing that, like I have everything figured out. I don't. Charlie Puth is here going on tour as well, his tour, world tour. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com. I was just looking, it'll be the Honda Center, the Keoform in April, and you've called this the most musical world tour ever. Yeah, it's going to be a task of how many musicians can we put on stage. Ooh, I love that. It is going to be the most musical tour I've been a part of because I consider myself to be a part of it because it's not just about me on stage. It's also my highest selling tour so far. Right! That feels good. I'm very surprised at that. It's my first arena tour. I'm blown away by the response because I'm criticized by my fans sometimes. I tend to go away for a long while because, I don't know, just for whatever reason. So I didn't expect everybody to show up for me the way that they have done. Absence has made the heart grow fonder in this case for you. I will say that, yeah. All right, well, let's get wrapped up here. Charlie Puth, whatever's clever, the world tour, the tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com. The new album's coming out March 27th. Congratulations on the Baby 2B. And stay close, my friend. It's great to see you smiling. Yeah, I'm sorry about the birds chirping, too. Oh, we love it. It's a sign. It's the universe talking to you. It's awful out here. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to make a song out of it. See you, buddy. Thanks for coming on. We love you. Bye. Bye-bye. Oh, man, so great to see him. And he's just beaming with excitement, right? You can tell in his personal life, his professional life. That's Charlie Puth.