Ryan Tedder

Tedder started pursuing music at the age of eighteen, infatuated with the thought of ‘making it’ in the industry. “I sat at the table with a guitar and outlined a five-year plan that ended with us playing arenas,” he says. “We used to play this tiny little club in Anaheim called Chain Reaction, it's like a rite of passage where if you play in California then you have to play this venue.” Describing it as one of the sweatiest and nastiest places they’ve had the honour of playing seven times in their career, located just down the street from The Pond arena where he and fellow bandmate Zach Filkins were mind blown seeing U2 perform back in 2006. Ten years pass and the boys have under their belts a sold-out show at that very venue, “I was so grateful but at the same time I was thinking that the younger me had no idea how hard this was going to be.”

 

Now 38, Tedder was left with no option but to hit the brakes on OneRepublic in order for the entirety of the band–though mainly himself–to reenergise and recover from such hectic lifestyles they’ve somehow managed to maintain for this long. He proclaims, “we went too hard with too many things and we eventually became victims of our own ambition. In a decade I don't think any one of us has patted ourselves on the back, we operate under the assumption that it could all be gone tomorrow, that the very next song you put out could be a complete disaster.”

 

For the first time ever accompanying members Zach Filkins, Drew Brown, Brent Kutzle and Eddie Fisher were able to secure houses of their own over the duration of the hiatus. “It's hard to imagine ten years into a band and just buying your own house,” Ryan explains, “not because we couldn't afford it but because we were never home long enough to actually take care of real life shit.” As we continue discussing what pumping the breaks meant for the band it’s sounding more like a glimmer of hope, a required process to stop the band from ending it there and then. “I think for a lot of artists it takes hitting the wall before you realise where the wall is. You're running in the dark and then it hits you. Now that I know where that wall is I believe and pray that I'll never hit it again.”

 

Aside from his own band, you’ll find Tedder in a writing session with at least a quarter of the artists currently in Billboard’s Hot 100 on regular occurrences. From plans of going in with Paul McCartney to being one of the sole songwriters/producers on the next Shawn Mendes record, Ryan may have put a halt on writing for himself yet it’s clear that this is something he can see himself doing for the rest of his life.

 

“I could talk about music for days,” Ryan guffaws to himself, this time name-dropping both Logic and Martin Garrix, just a peak of the upcoming collaborations he has hidden up his sleeve. On inspiration he spews out techniques for perfecting his creations: trying to make the dream post-chorus? The Scandinavian cap goes on and Tedder thinks, “what would Max Martin do here?” Or when he hasn’t quite found the receipe for a track needing a key-change, “what ingredients would Greg Kurstin throw in?” At this point you can picture him gleam as he babbles on further. “If you're just a one trick pony and you stick to one style then you're going to phase out eventually, it's inevitable.”

 

OneRepublic are keen on raising the bar at every opportunity. Musically Tedder is on his A-game–the three GRAMMY awards for Album of The Year back that one up for him–visuals however are a completely different story. “We've definitely taken huge strides to improve our visuals, DJ culture over the last five years have really impacted bands and touring artists that aren't DJs. Everyone has gotten so addicted to the production.” To the point where the band made a loss of $500,000 when touring their record Native, you can see they did it because their minds were telling them they had to, to bring a visual so undeniable because the ante had been upped.

 

You’ll need more than a trophy cabinet to store the accolades Ryan Tedder has achieved in the past ten years, with two more he already has his eye on… “If there's an award for dad of the year or husband of the year that'd be great.”

 

And what does he hope to achieve in the next ten years? Well, as much as his life revolves around music, health has always been priority for Tedder – more so than ever in 2018. “I want to be a healthy, balanced person and if in ten years from now I'm healthier and more balanced I don't give a damn what happens in my career.” He pauses, “I'll be happy as a person, and that's my goal.”