During an appearance on The Terrell Show that aired April 9, Puth revealed that much of his songwriting is rooted in gospel music and church-inspired harmony. The singer, whose recent album Whatever’s Clever! arrived in March, said many of the chords that drive his biggest songs came from gospel records he discovered years before he became a pop star.
Puth explained that he first became fascinated by those sounds while listening to Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, but said the deeper influence came later when he heard Richard Smallwood’s "Jesus, You’re the Center of My Joy."
He told host Terrell Grice that the song introduced him to the kind of chord changes he had been searching for.
“Then I heard ‘Jesus, You’re the Center of My Joy,’” Puth said. “I was always wondering where that chord came from.”
The 34-year-old said he grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, but became interested in a different style of worship music after discovering gospel performances online in the early YouTube era.
“I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, which is a bit different,” Puth said. “I was always wondering, there has to be another level.”
According to Puth, those gospel influences still show up throughout his work, even when the finished songs are packaged as mainstream pop. While discussing his live arrangement of “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” he said the updated version on his current tour is built around “all church chords inspired.”
He also pointed to older songs from Voicenotes and his newer material on Whatever’s Clever! as examples. Puth said the dramatic harmonies in “If You Leave Me Now” came directly from church music, while the choir-heavy production on his new album reflects what he described as a “churchy” sound running through the record.
“There’s a choir all throughout the record,” Puth said. “It’s very churchy. It’s like yacht rock churchy.”
