Time has taught this ‘Timeless’ singer it’s about more than just that bass

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Before kicking off "The Timeless Tour," her first full-scale road trip since 2017, Meghan Trainor admitted she was "nervous."

"It's been seven years, and it feels like 20 years," the pop singer said at the time. "I remember back then it was really hard to tour, but my friends and family keep reminding me, 'You're a new person. You take care of yourself way better. You have new songs, new hits, so every category is going to be so much better.'

"I was always getting sick back then," adds Trainor, who had vocal cord surgeries during 2016 and 2017. "Now that I have kids I have vitamins I take and they take, so we never get sick now. and I know how to take care of my voice now. It's a whole different thing."

In fact, adds Trainor, 30, the biggest challenge being on the road now is "making sure my kids" - sons Riley, three, and Barry, 14 months, with husband and actor Dary Sabara - "are having a good time. It's hard to travel with kids and bop them around at this age." So Trainor is decking out the tour bus with glow stars to stick on the wall and make Riley's bunk in particular "feel just like his room at home." The family's four dogs however, are staying at home and being looked after by family members.

"It's one thing to take kids, another to take the dogs," Trainor says, admitting with a laugh that, "I'm not that brave!"

Trainor will bring "The Timeless Tour" to Blossom Music Center on Friday, Sept. 27.

Trainor - who won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2016 - has certainly been bold in her career to this point, however.

It's been 10 years since she emerged with her chart-topping, Diamond-certified first single, "All About That Bass," and over the course of six studio albums (including this year's "Timeless") and five more Top 20 singles - plus guest appearances with Charlie Puth, Jason Mraz, tour opener Paul Russell and others - Trainor has been what she refers to as "a role-model for self-love," blending defiance, vulnerability and transparency into cathartic expressions that of both angst and joy.

"I write empowering songs," explains the Massachusetts-born Trainor, who began singing in church at age six, was playing in bands by the age of 12 and at one time took guitar lessons from NRBQ's Johnny Spampinato. She studied at Boston's Berklee School of Music before releasing her first independent album in 2009. Trainor wrote the doo-wop influenced "All About That Bass" with producer Kevin Kadis during late 2013, struggling to find a deal before Epic Records signed her the following year.

"I write little saucy songs trying to get my angers out," Trainor continues. "I try to write songs about my fears; the song 'Timeless' is about how we don't get to be here forever and how time is so precious, so I want to do my best with my time.

"It's something I'm working on; I haven't mastered it. I write the songs first for myself, and I know they'll affect others out there and hopefully help them. But I'm just talking about myself first, and if it helps others, it's a bonus. I'm talking truth, and I need these songs for ."

That she's been doing it as a recording artist for 15 years has been a bracing realization for Trainor, especially as she was putting together "The Timeless Tour" playlist, which encompasses nearly 30 songs from her discography, touching all of her albums save, for obvious reasons, 2020′s "A Very Trainor Christmas."

"It's been kind of emotional going through what songs have to be in the set," Trainor says. "It's been 10 years of (major label) work, 10 years of writing songs. My managers reminded me that, 'Ten years ago you' would have had to have covers,' 'cause we didn't have enough of my own songs. I couldn't fill an hour-long set. I've got to be grateful we've had so many hits. That's a great problem to have.

"I know so much more now," she adds. "I'm way for confident. I know what my body's I'm capable of. I know how to say 'These are my limits' and not push 'em - and also adding the curve all of, 'Here's two children...'

"But I'm excited and proud to show everyone how much better I've gotten. I hope I could maybe sing my music at some point in my life; that was just a dream. Now it's like, 'Oh, baby girl, you should've dreamed higher.' So many things happened to me that I never would've dreamed of - singing for Quincy Jones at his birthday party or for Micky Mouse at his 90th birthday party, the craziest things. The collaborations I've gotten to do. The multiple Super Bowl commercials. I never would have dreamed of that.

"It's definitely surpassed everything I've ever wanted. Now I look at it and go, 'Omigod...what else can I go and achieve?'"

On top of that list is "to tour successfully and enjoy it and love it" - with "Timeless Tour" dates running through Oct. 19 and hopes to take it overseas. She's also released a deluxe edition of the "Timeless" album, and Trainor predicts that she'll "do five more albums, but I'm just gonna write forever." And the wish list extends beyond music.

"The secret big dream of mine is to be in the acting world, maybe have my own TV show one day, like Kelly Clarkson," says Trainor, who's had voice roles in "Smurfs: The Lost Village," "Playmobil: The Movie" and "Blue's Clues & You!" on TV. In fact, she reveals, "the big bucket list dream is to write an animated movie and star in it and do all the music. I have it all written down, and it's great. I just need someone to believe in it like I do. Hopefully we'll find 'em."