Shawn Mendes is "tortured".

He said: "The greatest [artists] are tortured souls.

"I'm not calling myself great. I'm tortured because I care. I'm always upset about not doing things as good as I think I could have because I care."

The 'Stitches' hitmaker admitted he experiences a lot of highs and lows in his career, such as losing his voice but then being elated at performing in front of thousands of fans.

He told Billboard magazine: "A week ago, I lost my voice completely, and I was in tears.

"I was on the phone with my parents and screaming at my manager like, 'How could we do this?' And then last night I was onstage thinking, 'I'm a rock star.' I've never been so happy and excited and at the top of wherever I could be, on cloud nine. But I've also never been so deep in the ground ¬thinking, 'I can't breathe,' in my entire life."

But Shawn usually does his best to take care of his voice, admitting he thinks the rise of social media puts more pressure on singers these days.

He said: "I'm very extreme about [caring for my voice].

"Did people care about how a singer sounded live back in the day? I don't really feel like they did. Not -everything was being filmed. Today, one huge mess-up and millions are seeing it.

"There's a lot more on the line nowadays. We're so cautious and scared of messing up. It adds a lot of stress to a career."

While the 'Treat You Better' singer began singing and sharing videos online when he was just 13, he doesn't think he was "very good" until a year ago, but insists that wasn't important.

He said: "Singing kind of came out of nowhere. And it was s***ty. I would say I didn't start getting very good till last year. There's a lot more to success than just singing. I felt like, 'Let's do the rest and figure out the singing thing later.' "