411 Music Interview: Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic

Posted by Mitch Michaels on 02.10.2010

OneRepublic frontman talks about how to make a career out of the music business, being famous in America, being a hit songwriter and the band's versatile new album...

They broke onto the scene in 2007 with the Timbaland-produced Top 3 hit "Apologize", and there's been no stopping them sense. Back and touring on their second album, Waking Up, 411mania's Jeannie Michaels was lucky enough to get to sit down with OneRepublic mastermind Ryan Tedder, taking a few moments rest in Vegas over the weekend, to talk about his life in the music biz now that his band is a mainstream success. Check it out.

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Jeannie Michaels: Have you guys ever gone to Wikipedia and typed in OneRepublic?

Ryan Tedder: I've done it before, but I probably haven't done it in a while – maybe six months.

Jeannie: It's interesting – it calls OneRepublic "a Grammy Award nominated American pop rock band from Colorado. Formed in 2002 by Ryan Tedder and Zach Filkins, the band achieved success on MySpace, becoming the most prominent un-signed act on the website." What do you guys think about that definition?

Ryan: Well, it's kind of funny. We started as a rock band, but our first single – "Apologize" – was so massive and it was traditional pop because it was a remix. I don't know – I think if we had broken initially, waving our own flag, we'd probably have a slightly different angle. But, being how big "Apologize" was, there no escaping the pop label.

At this point, we could sit here and moan – initially we were really upset about it and it took a lot of fighting. Our live show is very much a rock experience. It took a lot of swallowing our pride to finally embrace it, because we figured we could either fight this – say we wanna be this or we wanna be that – or we could just embrace it and not be bitter.

The cool thing about being in pop – I don't think we're really in a genre at this point, based on our latest album, since it doesn't really fit anything. But if the music becomes popular, I guess that means we're pop.

Jeannie: I read in some interviews that you guys think you fit all genres. I definitely think that's true – you guys are not sticking to one formula whatsoever.

I was reading Rolling Stone, talking about your recent tour with Rob Thomas, and they gave a formula for you guys. They called it "The Fray X Rob Thomas + ‘Grey's Anatomy' rock = OneRepublic".

Ryan: That was on our first album, I have that article.

Jeannie: How do you guys feel about The Fray?

Ryan: You know, we're friends with The Fray. I'm especially close with Joe King. We're both based out of Denver, so my wife and his wife are really close friends and I'm close with Joe. I respect those guys a lot, I like them.

But again, some of the labels that were probably deserved on the first album, for better or for worse, don't apply to this album. That was part of the intention – we've gotta get away from this piano rock, Coldplay-lite sound and move on to greener pastures.

The first album, I can see the Fray comparisons, but sonically, what is in my head now is so much different. I've been working with Adele for the past week and the songs I've been doing with her, you wouldn't know I've had anything to do with them. I love bouncing around from genre to genre, that's what makes music interesting. And this band – you're always trying to think, there are so many bands out there, what's the one thing we can do that separates us? What a career artist should do is figure out what they're best that and make that your thing. There's so much noise out there, if you don't identify who you are as a person or as a band, you're not gonna have a long term career. You're gonna have one hit and you're gonna go away.

Jeannie: Which I think a lot of people kind of wrote you off as that with "Apologize".

Ryan: They did! And then "Stop and Stare" came out and they said, "OK, they're a two-hit wonder." [Laughs]

Jeannie: Or people said, "Who is this? That's the same group?"

Ryan: It's funny, we've been in Europe a lot lately. The second album came out and, fortunately, it's had some really good reviews. But there are always going to people that just hate you no matter what because you're popular. So we have that, and I'm an easy target because I write hits for other artists. Critics think I'm applying some secret formula, but the irony is that the OneRepublic stuff sounds nothing like what I've done with other artists.

That was the hardest part of making the album. I made a promise to the guys that, whatever songs we write together or that I write by myself – everybody in the band writes or contributes at some level – I said, whatever we do, I don't want this album sounding anything else. I don't want people saying "All The Right Moves" – you could've given that one to Pink or Beyonce or whatever. We put a painstaking amount of focus on finding out our own sound on this album and we realized that it is really eclectic. There are moments of total rock and moments of total pop, moments of total esoteric experimentalism, and that's what this band is. We're a band that loves Sigur Rios and Radiohead and Tim Buckley, but also gets off on whatever the Rihanna hit is.

Jeannie: Have you guys ever had any major disagreements over what you guys wanted to keep for yourselves as opposed to a song you've co-written for someone else?

Ryan: The only song that I've ever done for anybody that the band wished we had kept for us was Kelly Clarkson's single "Save You". That's the only song that we all heard and thought, man, we kind of wish that was our song.

Jeannie: You have to take things as they come, I'm sure, like that, but practically every song that you do co-write with somebody is a hit, with the exception of Leona Lewis' "Happy". Do you think the reason behind that though is that she was overseas for six weeks and not here to promote it?

Ryan: Absolutely. I've talked with the heads of her label and her and I don't think that will ever happen again. I guarantee the next time Leona Lewis puts out a single in America, she's going to be in America.

Jeannie: Just bad timing…

Ryan: It's the perfect example – we're the poster child for that. We serviced "All The Right Moves" in September, but it took almost five months of pounding it out, crisscrossing the country, working the country for people to finally start hearing it. And once people started hearing it, they started reacting to it and it started to work. And, to be honest, I think "Happy" could have had the same success if they'd had her here working it.

Jeannie: I totally agree.

Ryan: But it's water under the bridge. Leona's gonna have a long successful career, the album's still gonna go multi-platinum worldwide, and "Happy" was a hit. It's funny, as it was dying here in America, I was in Germany and Austria and England – everywhere else in the world, it was a hit. America's a special place; it's so big and it's kind of a fickle environment. Just saying, "Hey, my last album had a monster hit" – that doesn't work anymore. You have to give people a reason to care again. It's almost like you're a debut artist every time you put out a new album. You have to treat it like it's the last album you're ever gonna make.

Jeannie: Another problem is that, I think, in America, you have more acts coming out every week. It's almost like when you had the grunge thing in the early 90's – there's a big blowup of bands like that again, just different kinds of genres. If you don't hurry up and put something else out, they are going to forget you.

Ryan: America has about a six month shelf life. Any hit song, any hit artist – people will care about you for six months if you're lucky. But if within that time period, you don't put something else out that people care about, then your time is up. That's what we're trying to transcend as a band through our live show. How good of an artist are you really? Are you just good at putting out hit songs and catchy melodies, or can you have the live show and the personality and fanbase to back it up? There's no easy way anymore. Just getting a hit doesn't mean anything; you might make a few bucks and be famous for six months. What matters is, ten years later after your hit's dried up, did you build up enough of a fanbase to have a sell-out tour? That's a career. And the only way you can have that is to slug it out in small towns in America and cities you can't pronounce in Germany and eating weird food. Otherwise, you just cash in your chips and buy the cheap property.


Jeannie: Changing gears, I noticed that the cover art for the new album, Waking Up, was done by a former band member.

Ryan: Yeah, it was created by Jerrod Bettis, who is actually signed to me as a writer/producer now. He's got some upcoming cuts on some pretty big acts coming up in the next three or four months. One of the most talented guys I've ever met – kind of a prodigy, plays five instruments. He's kind of a freak actually.

Jeannie: I noticed that a lot of the guys in the band play different instruments – you play the drums some, the piano…

Ryan: I play four or five instruments, Drew [Brown] plays three or four, Brent [Kutzle] plays four or five. The thing that surprises people about OneRepublic – they don't expect us to be musical. Every time we do a concert, even critics who hated us, they leave saying, I had no idea that this band was so musical…

Jeannie: Yeah, and talented [laughs]

Ryan: They don't expect that! Radio these days – I'm not gonna call out these other bands – but we're in the era of producers. You have a band with a hit song and it sounds more like the producer playing everything. It really brings up the validity of the band itself. We wanted to sound just as good acoustically with four guys in a room and no effects as we would in the studio.

We've been together since 2003 – seven years now – and that's one of the things we identified on our new album. Why don't we just jump around from instrument to instrument? So now that's sort of our thing. We purposely incorporate that. I might jump from drums to piano, Brent might jump from piano to bass to guitar. We're always trying to find something that will keep our fans interested. When you're putting on a show, people want the music, but they also want to be entertained.

Jeannie: Do you guys have any arguments about who's going to play what during a song? I'm sure some of you guys have specific instruments you like to play.

Ryan: I will say there are moments when some of the guys will get a little territorial. You can kind of sense it. I don't really care, it's not like any of us are Stewart Copeland or Steve Vai, it's not like I'm Herbie Hancock or Harry Connick on piano. To me, it's more about the fact that we can rotate – three, four of us started playing different instruments out of necessity because the OneRepublic sound is so big. Sometimes there are guys getting territorial, but we rarely ever argue. Usually we're just goofing around.

Jeannie: So what's up for you guys now?

Ryan: Most of February I'm kind of off and in the studio, then in March we have a two and a half week run with Switchfoot, staying mostly in the south and southeast. Then we head back to Europe for almost a month. Europe has just been bananas for us on this album – every song we have put out is just rocking. It's been validating – while America's been taking a while, we've been watching the same songs go number one overseas. So we think, we're not crazy, hopefully these songs can become hits in our backyard too. So we're gonna be doing festivals – trying not to kill ourselves. Go hard a few weeks, then take some time off. We're gonna try to hit every territory – southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, we've got offers for Russia and Israel. It's going to be an interesting album cycle. Probably a nationwide headlining tour in America next winter – wait till we have two or three songs out to do that.

Plus, we're talking about doing some shows with Bon Jovi, two other big bands – they'll get pissed off if I say specifically before it's finalized – but will be really fun and cool for us if it happens.

Jeannie: I know you guys like U2 a lot. You say it's almost like a religious experience when you see them.

Ryan: What can you say about U2? We're friends with some of their management team so, if the opportunity ever arises, of course we'll jump on it. And believe you me, I'm not afraid to ask.

Jeannie: Well thank you for the interview. Is there anything you want to let your fans on 411mania know before you go?

Ryan: Just thank you so much for supporting us, supporting an album that's different and sticking with us. We did quite a departure from the first album, so we're really happy with the fans that stuck with us. We'd just ask that you spread the word. More than any amount of hits or albums, word of mouth is hands down the most important thing a band can have. So just keep talking!

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For more from Ryan Tedder and OneRepublic, make sure to hit up OneRepublic.net.