Shawn Mendes Wants to Make the World a Better Place

Shawn Mendes likes to feed his soul and help his fans!

The 18-year-old “Mercy” singer is no stranger to doing good things in the world.

Right now, he’s paired up with Paper Mate InkJoy Gel Pens on a campaign called “Spread Joy, Not Smears”

Continuing the tradition of his #NotesFromShawn campaign, the Canadian pop star wants to his fans to share their positivity while he’s on tour, asking them to share their handwritten notes on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #SpreadJoy and tagging Paper Mate.

We grilled Shawn — who’s getting ready for his 2017 world tour called Illuminate — about this campaign and his new album of the same name.

JJ: Tells us about the “Spread Joy, Not Smears” campaign.
This has been really important to me because it really shows the power of words and spreading positivity. When Papermate came to us wanting to get behind something like this, and really bring #NotesFromShawn to the next level with the #SpreadJoy campaign, I was just really excited to have someone who wanted to empower something so meaningful to me.

JJ: Has writing always come naturally to you or did you have to work at it?
I really have had to work at it, but I’ve always listened to pop music and think I just absorbed a lot as a listener and was able to naturally turn that into inspiration and somewhat taught myself.

JJ: Can you share some alternative song titles you were toying with for songs that made the new album?
Haha, to be honest every song title pretty much stayed the same through the whole process. We wrote 12 songs and used 12 songs, and they all had those names from the beginning surprisingly. It was such a natural process. The name usually just comes to you in what seems like an obvious way based on the lyrics.

JJ: What’s your favorite song from “Illuminate” to sing live & why?
“Ruin” is incredible. I’d say that’s up there for me. It just has this amazing energy and singalong moment at the end and every time seems to just evolve.

Read more things Shawn exclusively revealed about his life here.