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“All About That Bass”: Meghan Trainor joins Maryland native Chris Olsen on WTOP ahead of Jiffy Lube Live


“All About That Bass”: Meghan Trainor joins Maryland native Chris Olsen on WTOP ahead of Jiffy Lube Live

Meghan Trainor brings her “Timeless” tour with Chris Olsen from Chevy Chase, Maryland to Jiffy Lube Live in Virginia on Tuesday, September 17.

WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Meghan Trainor and Chris Olsen at Jiffy Lube Live (Part 1)

For her, it’s all about bass, no treble – and for him, it’s all about getting back to base without any problems.

Meghan Trainor brings her “Timeless” tour to Jiffy Lube Live in Virginia on Tuesday with singer, actor and TikTok guru Chris Olsen, who grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

“I feel like I’ve heard this (radio station) so many times in my life,” Olsen told WTOP. “I’m pretty sure this is the radio that plays every morning on the way to school. This is DC. This is it. We’ve done it.”

“Chris’ hometown!” Trainor told WTOP. “He came on my podcast called ‘Workin’ On It’ and we realized we had the exact same birthday, December 22nd. So we fell in love and were like, ‘Wow, we’re soulmates, we’re the same person.’ Since then, we’ve been inseparable and I hired him to help me with my TikToks and be my best friend.”

While Olsen was born in DC, Trainor was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and grew up listening to 2000s pop music.

“I listened to T-Pain, I loved T-Pain,” Trainor said. “I listened to whatever my brothers were playing. Sometimes I got to join in and play Britney Spears, but luckily my brothers liked the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC as much as I did, so we all listened to that together. Then my dad would play us old school music, so we listened to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. And my mom played a lot of Madonna and Billy Joel.”

In 2014, she signed a deal with Epic Records for her first album, “Title” (2015), which included hits such as “Dear Future Husband” and “Lips Are Movin’.” Trainor co-wrote the songs with Baltimore native Kevin Kadish, who attended Owings Mills High School and completed his own music management degree at the University of Maryland in College Park.

“I think I was 18 and living in Nashville. Then I drove to Franklin to write with a guy named Kevin Kadish,” Trainor said. “We worked on the whole album together and kept getting confused by what we were hearing from the label and the managers. We were hearing different things, so we were like, ‘Let’s write a song for her that says, ‘Your lips are moving, I know you’re lying because your lips are moving, you’re just talking in circles.'”

The biggest pop hit on the album was, of course, the catchy No. 1 hit “All About That Bass.”

“(Kevin) had a title in his notes that said ‘bass only, no treble,’ and I was like, ‘Well, all the kids say, ‘I’m all about this,’ when they say they like something, and I’m all about my butt, my thickness, and I have no treble,'” Trainor said. “Like in music, the bass is thick and the treble is the thin, high parts…so I was like, ‘I’m all about this thickness,’ you know? Then we wrote it in 45 minutes that day, and I was like, ‘Nobody’s ever going to hear this.'”

In addition to being nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys, “All About That Bass” was up for the top award of Record of the Year, along with Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” Sia’s “Chandelier,” Iggy Azalea and Charlie XCX’s “Fancy,” and Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” which ultimately won.

“He got me,” Trainor said. “I’ve never felt cooler. I was like a fangirl the whole night. I was staying at La Brea Park (in Los Angeles) and I was like, ‘What am I doing here?’ It was the best night of my life.”

The following year, Trainor returned to the Grammys and won the award for Best New Artist, just months before the release of her second album, Thank You (2016), which included the hit single “No.”

Her third album, Treat Myself (2020), brought even more hits with “No Excuses” and “Nice to Meet Ya” with Nicki Minaj, followed by her Seth MacFarlane duet “White Christmas” on her Christmas album A Very Trainor Christmas (2020). Her fifth album, Takin’ it Back (2022), brought the hit “Made You Look,” with funny twists like “Call your chiropractor if your neck breaks.”

Her latest album “Timeless” was released in June and features the single “Been Like This” featuring T-Pain.

“‘Been Like This,’ thank you for playing it on the radio,” Trainor said. “‘Whoops’ is one of my favorite songs that’s been on the radio lately, so thank you. Then we just released the deluxe version, which includes my favorite songs: ‘Make a Move,’ ‘Booty,’ and ‘Criminals,’ which is also featured on the new TV show ‘The Perfect Couple,’ which is my dream come true. It’s crazy to see all these famous, talented actors (like Nicole Kidman) dancing to my pop song.”

At this point they had to leave to get ready for their next show and did their makeup in the green room.

“I’m just starting to do makeup, so now I have beautiful, blue, sparkly eyes,” Trainor said. “You should do that for your hometown. When you show up for your hometown, Chris will have beautiful makeup that I will apply.”

“Meghan is the makeup artist for this tour, so she’s doing that for me, too,” Olsen said. “I’m ready. When people come to the show, I’ll show up with the glittery makeup. … My parents still live in Maryland, so I’m still a DMV girl.”

WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Meghan Trainor and Chris Olsen at Jiffy Lube Live (Part 2)

Listen to our entire conversation in the podcast below:

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