Shawn Mendes's Co-Writer Scott Harris On Writing Songs In The Dressing Room

By Rob LeDonne


because the pop star Shawn Mendes unleashes his fourth studio album Wonder, buoyed by its eponymous single, into the world today (December 4), it’s clear to hear an organic continuation of his unique musical perspective: raw, emotional lyrics complemented by catchy, guitar-forward, and occasionally swelling production. It’s a fashion Mendes has refined over the course of his entire discography, the bulk of which was crafted by a tight, integral order of co-writers: Teddy Geiger, Geoff Warburton, and Scott Harris. Harris, a Long Island native, noticed his first taste of chart-topper status with his co-write on “Don’t Let Me Down,” which The Chainsmokers and Daya took to No. 3 in 2016. He’s since penned hits with Niall Horan, P!Nk, Julia Michaels, and more.


Although his work with Mendes has continued and grown since they initially linked up in 2014, networking with on the soaring ballad “Life of the Party” and, later, the pop-rock grandiosity of “Treat You Better.” His songs helped take 2018’s Shawn Mendes album to No. 1. Right now, Wonder finds Harris the lone holdover of Shawn’s core songwriting categorize. “I think me and Shawn are so open together, and that lends itself to it being so straightforward in the music,” Harris tells MTV News. The result is an album of longing that’s also not afraid to go as big as it needs to. “A lot of this record was written both pre-quarantine and while in, although there really are definitely songs that made [their] way onto Wonder about isolation, pausing, and being alone. Even with the song 'Wonder,' writing that on FaceTime and bringing it into the studio in an era of Covid definitely affected that record and the way some of the lyrics spilled out.”


As listeners start to explore the world of Wonder, MTV News discussed with Harris about what it’s like watching Mendes grow from a young Vine performer into a world superstar, how writing for Mendes can double as a therapy session, and what the creative process was in back of its key tracks.


MTV News: You and Shawn go way back. Can you remember the initial time you met and worked together?


Harris: We met any time Shawn was recording 2014’s “Life of the Party,” which I co-wrote. His A&R played him the demo, he loved it and cut the song, and from then on, we began writing with each other. He was 15 at the time and I was 27. Shawn was a young songwriter, so I was showing him a little how to play guitar, and he was showing me ideas of what he was writing at the time, and we inspired each other at that very moment. The inspiration sort of never went away. I do feel like I was showing him the ropes as an older brother and in the same sense [he was] showing me the ropes as a younger brother.


MTV New: So right after working with Shawn for so long, with an assignment like Wonder, how do you go, “OK, let’s get to work on an entirely different album from scratch?”


Harris: It’s a special relationship. We were talking about Wonder the day the previous album came out [2018’s Shawn Mendes]. It begins with this rapport we have where we’re constantly sending each other voice notes or songs from Spotify that inspire each other. We’d send each other all different types of shit, like Beatles songs or Pink Floyd or Queen. We were also listening to Paul Simon songs and the Beach Gentlemen. We also went through a ton of different phases where we are listening to a bunch of ’80s music at one point, the sort of stuff I’ve been listening to forever, and those are a few of the artists who inspired the album. Creatively, it’d unravel from there.


MTV News: What was the timeline of the production process? Were you polishing stuff until recently?


Harris: It’s been wrapped for several months. With me and him, it never aids in preventing. Some of the ideas we began directly right following the last album have wrapped and became ideas that have made their way onto this album, and also ideas that came about a couple of months back. With “Wonder,” we’d began some of it on FaceTime and would get with each other to flesh it out.  One of the earliest songs was “Higher,” which we wrote in his dressing room right after one of his shows at Barclays Center. Before and immediately following the show, me and Shawn were strumming it, and the next day I remember him coming to my apartment, and we were sort of banging it out like, “Oh shit, this is really good.” We rented this studio down the block from my apartment and hashed it out from there on. I wasn’t even sure it was going to prepare this project, however it felt so strong and sort of kept making its way through all of the hoops. To this day it’s one of my favorites.


MTV News: Was there a creative inspiration any time it comes to the events of 2020 in the work?


Harris: I love a song we did called “Call My Friends.” It’s an anthemy-type record and it’s sort of about Shawn missing his companions and wanting to come back down to earth. Honestly, all he wanted to do, as he says, is look at the moon with his companions and smoke marijuana. Some days you’re running around the world and also you just need your homies. I think for myself I can definitely relate to missing those times. It’s a phone call to that idea, and it also feels really special.


MTV News: So several other pop stars have songwriting sessions with an assortment of people and they’re in and out of a million rooms. Nevertheless Shawn so often works with you and (previously) Teddy Geiger and Geoff Warburton. How come do you know, from his perspective, having a tight categorize was and is so integral to his creative process?


Harris: It certainly stems from an emotional place. Comfort is key in the songwriting community; once you’re comfortable feel you could really be yourself and be trustworthy, even for the music Shawn has made keeps it up and continues to create. Being straightforward and open like that takes a lot of time also it takes a lot of energy. As a substitute opposed to going around and doing The Dating Game with all of those pop writers and producers, you could just show up on any given day and spill your heart out and create versus beginning from zero. I can’t speak for Teddy and Geoff, nevertheless I know for Shawn and me, aside from collaborators, we’re companions. We talk about non-music stuff all of the time and some days it dips its way into the songs and some days it doesn’t. Nevertheless both comfort and vibing musically with another person is hard to find.


For example, once it came to writing a song like “In My Blood,” we went in thinking, how can we show the world how Shawn is really feeling? How can we not write a love song? How do we treat this song as some kind of story where we show Shawn has anxiety just like anybody else? How do we make it all not just I love you, I love you, I love you? Although that just sort of just stems from any deep therapy session we had. We'd been talking about anxiety and why some days it feels like also much, and we came up with that little riff. Me, Geoff, and Teddy ran with that idea. At the time, we didn’t know it was going to be the debut single up until 60 or 70 percent via album.


MTV News: It was also you, Shawn, Teddy, and Geoff who concocted what could be a game-changer in his perception as a “adult” artist, “Treat You Better.” Can you take me into that room?


Harris: I went on a trip to South America and was listening to a lot of Vampire Weekend, so I came back with a bunch of weird riffs and one of those was segment of the “Treat You Better” riff. We then had two days in the studio; we wrote “Treat You Better” one day and also a song called “Patience” the other day and we weren’t sure which one was better. They were both electric guitar demos at the time and we really fancied both of those. Lyrically, we were listening to The Police and talking about stories in Shawn’s life and came up with that sort of concept. It made its by means of the whole album process as a unproduced demo. Although one day, Teddy reproduced it, and we were like, “Wait, this is the perfect song we have!” Plus it sort of went from there.


MTV News: You’ve had a front-row seat to Shawn’s incredible rise and has seen his life go from regular kid to a world superstar. What has it been like to watch his life evolve into what it is today?


Harris: I remember growing up wondering about people’s rises to fame and it’s incredible to watch it all unfold. I remember him saying things like, “Man, if I can only get this beginning slot for Taylor Swift I’ll be good.” Watching those little milestones and watching him step on each one like a little bit ladder has been astonishing to see.


MTV News: As someone so close, what did you think of Shawn’s recent Netflix documentary In Wonder?


Harris: I think it’s a really good invitation in the direction of Shawn that people don’t know. Even getting feedback from my companions and family member, people of course listen to these songs we created with each other however this is the initial time they’re seeing Shawn as a real human being as instead of a pop star on the radio. You could visualize he’s a really good dude and he’s emotional and he’s got feelings. He gets lonely and happy like everybody else.