Every artist has their influences. For Tom Bruggemann, one name stands above the rest: Charlie Puth.
“He has a level of musical truth that has just pushed me to dig deeper with my own music,” Tom explains. “To be braver and more vulnerable and more real.”
It is an interesting choice of influence. Puth is known for his musicality, his ear for melody, and his willingness to put personal experiences into his songs without sugarcoating them. Those are exactly the qualities Tom strives for in his own work.
But Tom is not trying to sound like Charlie Puth. The influence is more philosophical than sonic. It is about the approach. The willingness to sit with uncomfortable emotions and turn them into something beautiful. The refusal to hide behind production tricks or vague lyrics.
You can hear this influence in songs like “Feels Like Home” and “I Will Love You Forever.” They are melodically rich, emotionally direct, and unafraid of sincerity. In an era where irony and detachment often dominate popular music, Tom’s songs are unapologetically earnest.
“When I set out to bring these songs to life, I wanted to do it in a way that was both modern but yet felt emotionally true,” he says. That balance between contemporary production and timeless emotional honesty is the Charlie Puth effect in action.
Tom has taken that inspiration and made it entirely his own. His songs do not sound like anyone else’s because they come from a life that is entirely his own. A life filled with love, loss, mistakes, and the kind of hard-won wisdom that only comes from living through all of it.
Charlie Puth showed Tom what was possible. Tom took it from there.