Johnny Orlando On His New Single “Thinking Of Me”, Heartbreak, Touring In Asia And More

With thick wavy hair that frames his boyish yet sharp facial features and deep-set emotive eyes, it’s no wonder that Canadian actor and internet sensation Johnny Orlando has millions of fans around the globe. But there’s more to the 20-year-old than his good looks: He’s also a terrifically gifted singer-songwriter and lyricist. His debut album all the things that could go wrong has amassed over 150 million streams globally, followed by a highly-successful tour in the United States.

In his nascent music career, Orlando has already secured nominations for Breakthrough Artist of the Year & Pop Album of the Year at the JUNO Awards, and bagged four consecutive wins for Best Canadian Act at the MTV European Music Awards.

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Riding on the success of his North America tour, Orlando brought his keenly awaited “The Ride Tour” to Asia—including Tokyo, Taipei and Manila. His latest stop was in Singapore, where he held a solo concert and performed for one night only at the Capitol Theatre, which boasts a capacity of 977 people. 

While serenading his fans and capturing hearts, Orlando has been dealing with his own heartbreak. This also serves as the inspiration behind his latest single “Thinking Of Me”, which launches on December 8. We caught up with the rising star while he was in Singapore to find out more about his new music, fashion, why he thinks sadness inspires great music and more.

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ON TOURING THE WORLD

How does the Singapore leg of your Asia tour compare with the ones in North America?

With every show, you learn something new. We have audio and video recordings of all our shows, which we watch to identify areas for improvement. There’s a noticeable difference between the end of the North American leg of our tour and the start of our Asian tour. So Singapore got the best version of us on stage. The crowd was insane, which always helps. 

What are your must-haves while touring?

When I’m on tour, I always have a pillow. Always. Usually for a bus tour, we’ll stay in a hotel for the first couple nights and I’ll always steal a pillow—they charge me for it, so I’m not actually stealing. The bus pillows are just dismal so it’s mostly comfort stuff like sweatpants, sweatshirt, pillow, and Kraft Dinners (mac and cheese) for sure. 

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Describe your fashion style while on tour.

I try to keep it simple enough for the actual pieces. I heard this word, "capsule wardrobe", where it has everything you can just wear and pair with everything, which I like. I have a couple of crazy pieces that I’ll wear once. I’ll get a crazy-looking belt or something and cool shoes. Basically things you can wear with different outfits. But while on tour, I’ve just been wearing a black t-shirt and cool pants, boots and a funky belt. 

ON MAKING MUSIC

Growing up, from when you first discovered music till now, was there ever one particular song you wish you had written?

There’re so many songs that I wish I had written. The first song that I ever wished I wrote—this is even before I started music—was “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam. It was the first song that I really listened to the lyrics. I was probably seven years old, and I was like ‘Oh my god it was a car crash this whole time!’. So that and “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star. I wrote a song called “Close To You” with that as an inspiration, and that’s also my favourite song that I’ve ever written.

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Why is that your favourite song of yours?

I think that song specifically was such a step forward in writing for me and production. I worked with a producer and oh god, there were so many revisions. I also brought my band in and they played on that song. It’s the first time that I’ve ever done this. It was just a lot of firsts. That song came from a very dark time in my life. I was not in a great place and the original demos were just me in my room wailing on a guitar at four in the morning but it ended up being this beautiful kind of psychedelic, pop-rock song. I don’t even know how to describe it but I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s the best song I’ve ever written. Definitely my favourite.

Speaking of writing songs, what is your creative process like? And what comes first?

Usually when I’m writing a song, I start by playing a chord first. I’ll always have people with me as well, most of the time. Or at least, my sister Darian. I’ll just play chords, get a mic and just start humming or say nonsense. 

I have a note on my phone that I started the day that my ex and I broke up, and it’s very much full. So I’ll just go in there because there’s lines, cool sounding words like a three syllable word that can start an entire rhyme or short sentence that it kind of rolls off the tongue. I try to make it sound natural. I think the first instinct is usually the best or at least the most fitting for the vibe that you’re going for. But it usually all starts with a chord. 

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What emotion would you say strongly inspires your music? 

Sadness. That’s one of the most powerful emotions. During the happiest times of my life, I’m usually not writing music. I also find it a lot easier to write about sad stuff. For instance, there’s this one chord movement on the guitar, seventh minor to minor, that I find so sad for some reason. Every time I do that, I go into a sad boy state of mind. 

ON HEARTBREAK

As a musician, why do you think sadness inspires so much great music? 

I don’t know why sadness inspires such great music. I feel like it’s one of the most powerful emotions and it’s the end result of a lot of other powerful emotions like love. When love ends, what do you feel? Sadness is one of them and that’s a simplification of grief, resentment. You’re left with this hole and it’s so easy to just pour your emotion out of that. It’s a release. It’s almost like therapising yourself, at least it was for me. I would go to therapy, probably should, but in the writing room, I’ve worked through so much while writing The Ride 1, 2 and 3. I feel like some of us are wired to be sad.

Tell us about your new single “Thinking Of Me”.

“Thinking Of Me” is still sad but it’s like a bittersweet happy song. There’s undertones of sadness but that song is about moving on. You give so much of yourself for however long, but you can’t really take that back at the end of it. It just doesn’t work like that, at least for me. So while this song is sad, it’s also about a nice notion of thinking that somebody still might be thinking about you once in a while, on account of everything that you gave them and they gave you.

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Was there someone behind it? 

Most definitely. The Ride is a break-up album. While writing it, it became clear to me that this is how I approach things in life. It was my first break-up, so it was an interesting experience to me as I felt everything. It was exaggerated in every sense of that. Every bad thing that happened was like the end of the world because I was already at this baseline level of sadness. 

Ultimately, I noticed three distinct phases, which is why there’s a part one, two and three—and I got tattoos of them. These are not break-up tattoos, they’re reminders to override that and think of things that won’t make me so susceptible to such highs and lows. They are reminders to keep myself grounded. I have one on my back as well.

Part one was that initial, emotional response—so “Boyfriend” and “July”. “Boyfriend” is a very angry song that I wrote very soon after the break-up. It was raw as hell and “July” is the complete opposite of that, where everything can be perfect.

Part two is a little bit down the line where I was going buckwild for a bit, which I feel is also natural. I just didn’t care and that rarely happens to me anymore as an older person. But when I was a teenager, good lord! Looking at my parents, I don’t know how they dealt with me. It was like naivety and a disregard for your own personal wellbeing because you’re excited about something, and that something in this case is being single. Part three is looking at everything clearly. I call it true reflection because you can sit down and dissect everything and see it as it was.

ON THE FUTURE

What would you say are your biggest personal and professional milestones this year?

If we’re talking about personal achievements this year, going on tour was probably the biggest one. There's so much growth that happened personally and professionally. Also, I can feel my frontal lobe developing, so I’m gonna put that down as one. I’m also just more responsible. It's really scary but my parents are stoked, which is great. Piggybacking off of that one, I feel like I’m deciding what matters and that’s become more clear to me these days; and cutting people out of my life that I don’t need or aren’t good for me and bringing in people that are—including my fans. 

Also, I think my writing has gotten a lot better, which is one of the most important things to me professionally. I admire great writers so I’m happy. “Close To You”, like I said before, was such a step forward. I'm so proud of that song, which I don’t say as often as I would like, but I am.

What would you like to say to your fans in Singapore?

To all my Singaporean fans, everyone who was at my concert and the people who couldn’t make it: thank you. You welcomed me, literally at the airport, with open arms and every second since then, I’ve felt that love. So thank you. I will be coming back. I said that on stage and I mean it.

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.