STEPHEN PUTH Interview- brother, previously working in finance, music after college, getting signed

“It occurred to me I can write better beats than this, I can make better music like this”

Stephen Puth knows that the most powerful, heartfelt songs in pop-music history are about love. A singer, songwriter, and musician, Puth also writes songs that traffic in affairs of the heart. But rather than complain about what goes wrong in relationships, the 24-year-old New Jersey native zeroes in on the small, random moments that can become saturated in one’s memory. “It’s boring to just sing about how you got hurt,” Puth declares. “I try to focus on the tiny, specific things I can’t forget, things I didn’t think anything of at the time, but that later become powerful, emotional memories.”

Puth does just that on his debut single for Arista Records, “Sexual Vibe” — a retro-tinged song “about that moment where you see someone across the room, maybe at a party, and how you feel before anything even happens,” Puth says. “Nothing may ever happen, but maybe you start talking, maybe you start dancing — it’s about the build-up and seeing where it goes. When I’m writing, I’m interested in how something started, how it ended, and everything in between.”