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"  Signing a major record label deal, touring across America and climbing to number one on iTunes in the US with a debut EP all before your 16th birthday might seem like a whirlwind tale from a Disney Channel movie, but for Shawn Mendes it has quickly become a reality. The 15-year-old Canadian has had little under a year of continual surprises. Last August, he uploaded a short snippet of himself singing Justin Bieber&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;As Long As You Love Me&amp;#039; to Vine, which attracted thousands of likes overnight. &amp;quot;I kept refreshing, and was like, &amp;#039;What&amp;#039;s going on? Why do I have all these followers?&amp;#039; It just didn&amp;#039;t make sense.&amp;quot; The increased attention rapidly snowballed, and soon enough, record label executives were keen to fly Mendes to New York. &amp;quot;I remember we were in the car and we had an email from Warner Brothers. My manager worked at Warner at the time and he was asking me to come down and meet people from Island Records and Universal,&amp;quot; Shawn recalls. &amp;quot;I said to my mum, &amp;#039;Isn&amp;#039;t that a record label?&amp;#039; And she said, &amp;#039;I think we just got an email from a record label Shawn, this is insane!&amp;#039; We were in the car freaking out - it was really funny.&amp;quot;  After numerous meetings with label big wigs, Shawn opted to sign with Island Records, but despite the life-changing decision on his shoulders, he still had to go to school like every regular teenager. &amp;quot;That was a weird period. It was so hard for me to focus because my mind was travelling and I had a record deal. I could have signed it, but I hadn&amp;#039;t just yet - it was at my house. Every day I was like, &amp;#039;This is the most surreal thing ever, I&amp;#039;m about to sign to a major record label and I&amp;#039;m sitting in science class and just cannot focus on the lesson.&amp;#039; My mind was just thinking, &amp;#039;What is the next six months going to be like?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Half a year on and he has just opened for Austin Mahone at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles in front of thousands of screaming fans. His set-up is simple; a stool and a guitar. The stripped-back performance allows him to showcase his clean vocal tone, and for a teenager who is used to singing into his webcam for the YouTube generation, he is calm and confident in the raucous environment of a teen pop gig. There&amp;#039;s charming stage patter between songs, knowing smiles here and there, and plenty of pauses to let the screaming intensify.      Naturally, the biggest reaction is reserved for &amp;#039;Life Of The Party&amp;#039;; its lyrics of embracing who you are and Shawn&amp;#039;s rousing vocal performance making it prime for teenage diffidence. It&amp;#039;s a style Shawn is hoping to remain faithful to, even if at times he sounds beyond his years. &amp;quot;Being 15, I feel like people want me to go down the Justin Bieber, Cody Simpson sort of genre,&amp;quot; he admits, but Shawn wants to keep to his soul-meets-folk acoustic-driven sound, and earmarks Ed Sheeran and Justin Timberlake as &amp;quot;huge&amp;quot; inspirations. And Mendes is fast proving to be just as popular as his idols. His first EP of original material topped the US iTunes chart in 37 minutes last month, and has since gone Top 10 in 33 countries. &amp;quot;I freaked out,&amp;quot; he said of the response. &amp;quot;What really freaked me out was in the UK, when I went to bed it was at number 68, and then when I woke up in the morning it was at eight. I was blown away.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s more remarkable is that Mendes achieved the great chart placings with very little radio play, television spots and press. &amp;quot;I know I have a fan base and I know they&amp;#039;re strong, and I kind of had faith in them to help me,&amp;quot; Shawn acknowledges. &amp;quot;Either way, how it went, if I sold 10,000 copies or when I sold 100,000, I would have been pleased.&amp;quot; Following the breakout success of his self-titled EP, Mendes will head back to Canada and into the studio later this year to work on his full-length debut album. One Direction songwriter Julian Bunetta is on board, with a few other collaborators expected to attend studio sessions for &amp;quot;a month of writing to get this album out there&amp;quot;. But don&amp;#039;t write Mendes off as a pop puppet who will just be handed songs. He plans to be very vocal in the studio. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s my sense that&amp;#039;s what my fans want and they can see it,&amp;quot; he explains. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sure they can feel when it&amp;#039;s not me and when it is me, and even if I&amp;#039;m cutting a track, I sing it the way I&amp;#039;d like it to sound.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s Shawn&amp;#039;s collected demeanour and forthright attitude that makes him a refreshing and endearing teen star. His lifestyle has been swiftly transformed over the past 12 months, but the accelerated pace has yet to completely faze him. &amp;quot;There are times when I&amp;#039;m super overwhelmed and everything feels like it&amp;#039;s hitting me in the face at once, but I think what&amp;#039;s keeping me calm, and who I am by staying true to myself, is my whole family being so supportive and keeping me grounded. They treat me the exact same way they treated me years and years ago.&amp;quot; With potential global superstardom peering over the horizon, Shawn seems ready for the gruelling work schedule and pressures of being a teen heartthrob, as well as having the drive and ambition to cultivate a solid recording career. &amp;quot;The one thing Ed Sheeran said to me is make sure you go to every single radio station, go to every single interview,&amp;quot; he notes. &amp;quot;Because that&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s gonna push you further than the artists that didn&amp;#039;t take the time.&amp;quot; Shawn Mendes&amp;#039;s self-titled EP is available to download now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a588558/shawn-mendes-meet-vines-biggest-popstar/>