Joining host Bru today for a special Audacy Check In is singer Meghan Trainor, giving us fresh details behind her forthcoming album, Timeless, her brand new tour dates, and more.

GRAMMY-winning singer Meghan Trainor has revealed her first round of tour dates in seven years, as well as the release date for her sixth full-length album, Timeless, set to hit shelves on June 14 -- just in time to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her diamond-certified smash “All About That Bass.”

Getting right into her brand new single “Been Like This” with T-Pain, Meghan admits, “I can't believe it's real, I can't believe I could say that, I can't believe it's finally out! After ‘Made You Look’ popped off, a lot of comments I saw were like, ‘Wow, I thought you retired’ and I was like, ‘Oh, I'm still here. I'm doing it… I've been like this, and T-Pain's having that same moment where people are like, ‘I didn't know he could sing so well.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, you're new here. I've been knowing how good he is.’ So, it felt like destiny to have this song together and he murdered his verse. It was so good.”

“We just shot the music video together and I cannot believe my life,” Meghan adds. “I will say that it was the most physically tasking… It was challenging for me physically because I was like, doing what felt like a pull-up the whole time. But I'm hanging on top of a chandelier and I was holding on for dear life... But I looked cool and I look calm up there.”

Their collaboration, Meghan believes was no accident. “Every day my mom's like, ‘Hey, 15-year-old Meghan, you have a song with T-Pain!’ And I'm like, no way, dude,’” she admits. “I’ve been manifesting him for like, 10 years,” she laughs.  “Like, nice and loud, I'm on my 10-year anniversary of ‘All About That Bass,’ and when people ask me, ‘Who's your favorite artist? T Pain. ‘Who's your favorite songwriter?’ T-Pain.“

“I've been putting this out into the world for a long time,” Meghan says, and after finally getting his number last year and “casually” sending him her idea for the collab, he was all in. “Then he ghosted me for a while,” she reveals. “I was like, ‘he hates me,’ but it was all a part of a big surprise for my 30th birthday! He surprised me at my house on my birthday… and he played me the verse that he sang on.”

Meghan’s new album title was chosen specifically because of her “wish that we were timeless forever. And my love for my family, and for the fans, and music is timeless. So, I hope in 50 years we can play this music and go, ‘Wow, it still slaps, you know?’ That comes out on my hubby's birthday in June, and then after seven long years, I'm going back on tour,” she explains.

Of course, the pandemic slowed things down for everyone, so she took what she calls a break. “I got pregnant, had babies, you know, did that. That was tough too,” she admits, but now “they're happy and great and healthy and we're blessed and I'm going to bring them on the road.”

Family dynamics while traveling from city to city can certainly bring its own set of challenges, but already there seems to be hope. “We're trying to talk to our three-year-old about like, ‘you're going to live on a bus,’ and he's like, ‘I can't wait,’” she says.

“I've been practicing and getting back into it,” performing small shows to get back into the groove, “but I'm just so excited to sing for my crowd, for my fans, my people,” she says, “because some gigs you do it's not always your fans out of there… but my fans are going to scream every word and I haven't had that in a minute.”

Revealing some more Timeless details, Meghan tells us that T-Pain is actually included on another song, “Love On Hold,” stopping short of revealing another big collab. All 16 tracks she says are “upbeat, happy, confident… and then we got a deluxe with extra ones possibly. There's only one slow song, called ‘Timeless’ -- it's the big ballad, the big love song. And there's another slow one that I did with my little bro, called ‘Forget How To Love,’ which is very big and powerful.”

One chance Meghan will get to perform in front of fans before her tour kicks off will be at Audacy’s Leading Ladies concert at Brooklyn’s King’s Theatre on March 20, also featuring Kelsea Ballerini, Elle King, Christina Perri, and Rachel Platten. Kelsea, she says is “the love of my life and she doesn't know it… she texts me randomly every now and then when I do an interview and she's like, ‘You are me and I am you, and we are best friends,’ and I'm like, ‘I feel that,’ but I never get to see her. Who else is on the show? Christina Perri – icon, legend. She’s so nice. She emailed me a whole thing when I had my first mental health moment publicly. I was really going through it, like panic disorders and panic attacks, and she reached out to help me out of nowhere and I was like, ‘Why are you an angel?’” And then [Elle] King, queen, she's going to be there and we're all going to sing a songwriting round, one at a time.”

Wrapping up their chat with a perfect bow, Meghan says the entire concept behind Timeless comes from her being mesmerized by the fact that “we're here and then we're not,” she explains. “I don't get it and it rattles my bones. So, I wrote a song, ‘Timeless,’ as if maybe I bet we're timeless. The amount that I love you, this can't just end. It has to go on forever. That's with every family member I have, I haven't experienced big loss in my face yet and I don't know how I'm going to be. I don't think I'll be good, but I'm writing these songs preparing me for it.”

“I'm like, ‘It's ok. I will hold your hand later if, if and when that happens.’”

Don’t miss Bru's full Audacy Check In with Meghan Trainor above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru