DeGeneres changes Puth’s world

Singer-songwriter Charlie Puth was just another kid studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston and putting covers of hit songs on YouTube when he attracted the attention of Ellen DeGeneres. Puth signed to DeGeneres’ record label, made his way to Los Angeles and landed his first hit single by the time he was 23. “Marvin Gaye,” a retro R&B collaboration with Meghan Trainor, was soon followed by the chart-topping Wiz Khalifa collab “See You Again,” which appeared on the “Furious 7” soundtrack.

An homage to the late Paul Walker that is infamous for making grown men weep, it helped affix the general impression, cemented by Puth’s subsequent debut, “Nine Track Mind,” that he’s a soulful and sensitive crooner in the Ed Sheeran mold.

In a recent interview, Puth talked about Selena Gomez, his sometime tourmate and partner on the recent hit “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” his freakish musical skills, and his new, weird life as a celebrity.

The following are excerpts from that conversation:

• On his late start: I only started singing in front of people when I was 22. I started singing when I was 18.

I came really late into it, but I always was producing music and using my voice, just behind the scenes.

• On the trick to writing a hit song: I’m really interested in the mathematical side, (like) how many syllables you can fit in a verse without it becoming not memorable. You want one phrase to repeat itself as many times without becoming annoying, that’s always the trick.

Not a lot of people will realize this who aren’t writing, who are just singing along, but it’s really important when you’re writing the record to make the key of the song manageable for guys and girls to sing it. ….You also don’t want (the songwriting rules) to become too rigid, because then it’s not going to be emotional, and emotion always rules over everything.

• On writing “Marvin Gaye” for someone else — Sam Smith, probably — to sing: I sat on it for like nine months, and had someone else in mind for it, and my manager at the time was just like, “Why don’t you just sing it?” Everyone was like, “Wow, you sound the best on it.” I guess that’s because I wrote it. That’s not my style of music that I’m trying to put out. It’s R&B a little bit, it’s more like a throwback. I’m like, I’m gonna come out with this song, and everyone’s gonna think I’m a throwback. I never thought that would be the first song I put out.

• On Selena Gomez: I think Selena and I are, like, on the busiest schedules in the world. She’s like the biggest pop star in the world, and I’m the most up-and-coming, crazy scheduled person in the world.

We’re always, like, on the opposite sides of the earth, it seems.

• On returning home to Rumson, N.J.: Everyone in Rumson is so cool, they don’t bother me. When I go out to eat, I’ll take pictures with anyone. My mom is like, “No, we’re eating.” (I’m) like, “No, it’s fine.” In Rumson, it’s such a small town, everyone knows me. They don’t have to go crazy when they see me, because I used to sing in choir with their daughter or something like that.

• On whether he was the Sensitive Friend in high school who never got the girl: I wasn’t even the sensitive friend. I was by myself all the time, but I liked it in some weird way. I liked being by myself. I was always weirdly confident. Even though I was verbally bullied, I was very confident in myself and what I was doing.

• On his new life in Los Angeles: I’m not one for the Hollywood dream, and I never have been. I’m not floored by celebrity, but I will be driving around sometimes in my car on Hollywood Boulevard and be listening to my own music on the radio and hear me speaking. It’ll be like, ‘Wow, this is pretty amazing, how much I’ve accomplished in one year.’ But it just motivates me to do more, I don’t become, like, a (expletive).

• On the pitfalls of his newly minted celebrity: When I get followed by paparazzi, whenever I go out to eat and all these girls want to meet up with me, to climb whatever they think is a social ladder, I just think about New Jersey.

I’m New Jersey to the core.

I don’t like the “Fake it ’til you make it” Hollywood mentality, it’s not my thing. If I just stick to my ground, I’ll make it. I’ll be fine.