Meghan Trainor: ‘I compare myself to other people online all the time… I want to protect my kids from all that’

Back in 2014, when she was a 20-year-old ingenue, her debut single All About That Bass became a veritable sensation. Not only was it a US chart-topper, obliterating everything in its wake, but it also secured top spot in 55 other countries too, including Ireland.

The singer from Nantucket, Massachusetts, might have been forgiven for losing contact with terra firma, but she credits her family with keeping her grounded. Her mother, Kelli, still manages her career — and sits just out of view during our Zoom call — and her two brothers, Ryan and Justin, recently started songwriting with her.

Both siblings are credited on her new album, Timeless, a record that fuses all sorts of genres, including bubblegum pop and doo-wop, in a playful, radio-friendly manner. It is, she believes, the most ambitious and expansive album of her career to date.

She is determined to keep it a family affair. “My mom believed in me from the start,” she says, cheerily, adding that she is embarrassed now when she listens back to some of those early demos. “She’d be like, ‘This is amazing.’ So I’d keep working and get better and better and without that [attitude], I wouldn’t be here.”

Around the time that All About That Bass was eating up the charts, Rolling Stone called Trainor a “most unlikely pop star”. She certainly seemed to be playing by different rules to her peers. She even looked different and the track, which was nominated for Grammy Song of the Year, became a defiant anthem of body positivity. “Yeah, it’s pretty clear,” she sang, “I ain’t no size two.” Some saw her as a proponent of girl power, although others suggested some of her songs were anti-feminist, concerned with pleasing men.

She has frequently sung about body shape and her determination not to succumb to the industry norm of rake-thin performers. As she has frequently pointed out, her body shape is common.

Is thinness less celebrated today than it was when she started out? “I think it’s literally split down the middle,” she says. “On my personal Instagram, I follow a lot of moms, and they’re showing everything — their stretch marks, their C-section scars — and I love that. You wouldn’t have seen that [on social media] 10 years ago or when I was growing up. That’s where the internet can be beautiful — the ‘no filter’ stuff, like when Alicia Keys goes around with no make-up.

“But, on the other side, I compare myself to other people online all the time. I wrote about it in my last album on Don’t I Make It Look Easy? because I posted a picture, I have filters and I look at all the comments. On Instagram, you only post the best of the best. It’s definitely hard. I’m hopefully going to have daughters one day and I want to protect them from all that. And my sons too.” Her boys are Riley, three years old, and Barry, 10 months.

In September, Trainor embarks on an extensive tour of North America. It will be her first time on the road in seven years. She plans to bring her children with her and she is under no illusion about the challenge.

Kelly Clarkson has been on a similar journey and had some words of advice for Trainor recently. “She made me a little more nervous,” she says, with a laugh. “She said to me, ‘Sleeeeeep’. Your voice needs sleep and rest so I need to try my best to sleep in when I can but these kids, man, they get up at six! I don’t know what we’re going to do!”

She says her husband — actor Daryl Sabara, best known for the Spy Kids film franchise — has her back and, as if on cue, he walks into the living room and presents her with a cup of tea and a kiss. “We were just talking about you,” she tells him, “that you’ll be stepping it up while I’m on tour.” Sabara offers a friendly wave. “He’s literally mom and dad,” Trainor says, “and my mom will also be going on tour with me because I can’t do anything with her.”

The itinerary will take in some of the most celebrated venues in America, including New York’s Madison Square Garden and the Red Rocks outdoor amphitheatre in Denver. There are no plans, as yet, for European dates. She says that will depend on how the little ones handle life on the road in the autumn.

I always tell them on day one, ‘You win — you showed up’. And when I see them fight and work so hard I want to hug them and tell them, ‘I’ll be your best friend and guide you through this.’

Although she toured extensively in her early career, much of her focus of late has been on television. She has become something of a go-to judge for reality audition shows. Most recently, she was a regular on Australian Idol. In 2020, while a judge on The Voice UK, she mentored Irish singer Brooke Scullion, who went on to sing for the country at Eurovision. Out of shot, her mother prompts her to mention the Derry native. “She’s incredible. I always said, ‘That’s my girl. She’s on my team and she’s been crushing it.”

Trainor takes a very different approach to the job of judge to someone like Simon Cowell, who was famed for his scathing put-downs to contestants. She says that’s not her style, especially when she puts herself in the would-bes’ shoes. “Well, for one, I could never have done those shows when I was younger. I was never brave enough so I always tell them on day one, ‘You win — you showed up’. And when I see them fight and work so hard I want to hug them and tell them, ‘I’ll be your best friend and guide you through this.’ And when I see them get famous really fast, I want to protect them from that because that happened to me.”

She makes no secret of the fact that she would love to land a top telly gig, judge on American Idol. With Katy Perry departing the show, Trainor has been tipped to take over. “It’s my dream job,” she says, with refreshing candour.

Another dream was working with the US rapper, T Pain. He appears on a couple of the tracks on Timeless. “It’s called manifesting, baby! I knew it would work some day. I was on the Drew Barrymore Show and she had him send a message into me. I was like, ‘He knows I exist!’ Slowly, I got his number, but I was very nervous about contacting him. But for this album I said to myself that my only goal was to have T Pain feature. And it happened.”

‘Timeless’ is out now