Neon Limelight Interviews: OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder Won’t ‘Apologize’ For New Direction On “Waking Up”

OneRepublic - Universal Music Group

When your debut album spawns one of the biggest pop hits to be released in recent years, how do you duplicate it? You don’t even try if you’re OneRepublic.

The band who found world-wide success with their smash “Apologize” just released their sophomore album, Waking Up, and while they know how good “Apologize” was for their career, they weren’t interested in packing the new album with a bunch of sound-alikes.

Instead they delivered an album boasting passion, thumping drums, wailing guitars, and a more uplifting tone than its predecessor. A big part of the new direction was putting frontman Ryan Tedder in the producer seat for the entire set to craft an album that would stamp the band with a sonic identity all their down, one Tedder says is “genre-less.”

Neon Limelight caught up with Tedder last week to talk about the band’s new album, evolved sound, his current writing projects, and what he’d like to see change about the music industry.

Neon Limelight: How did you make sure the new album was different from the first?

Ryan Tedder: We didn’t allow any songs on the album that were produced the same way as the first album. That was one way to do it. We used a different producer. I ended up producing this album instead of Greg Wells. Just changing producers switched the sound up a lot, and the whole approach. We just stayed away from the formula of the first album — the writing formula. We wrote most of this album all over the world, like in South Africa, Germany, the UK, and Japan, so it’s really influenced by a lot of different places. There’s an energy to it. It’s a lot more tempo. It’s a lot more exciting. Just a whole other feel to it. The drums hit harder, the vocals are bigger. It’s not as sorta dreamy as the first album. The first album was sorta melancholy, longing. That sorta thing. This one is kind of more — it has more swagger. But there is one or two songs that will connect people to the first album. We have a couple of songs that fans of the first album will hear and they’ll understand that it’s the same band that put out “Apologize.”

NL: Yeah, you don’t want to go too far from the sound that made you guys famous.

RT: Yeah, we want to leave some connectivity there. We have to switch the sound up a little bit because the first album was…I love the first album, but by the time the album came out it was already somewhat dated because we had the album finished for three years. Enough of the bands out there at the time had that similar sound, like the “Stop and Stare” and that kind of thing. This album identifies the sound of this band, separates us from other acts out there, and really creates a sonic identity. That’s critical because we don’t want to be interchangeable. We don’t want to put out the kind of songs that people are like ‘I can hear Lifehouse singing that.’ We wanted to have songs that sound like ‘Oh! That’s [OneRepublic].’

NL: You guys are a band like no other. It doesn’t matter what genre of music a person listens to, everyone can like you guys because you kind of fit everywhere. Was it a conscious decision to have that sound where you don’t fit into one genre or did it happen naturally?

RT: It was both. We realized that that was what we were doing naturally. The songs that were being written all go together but they don’t fit any genre. They’re not rock. They’re not pop. They’re not hip hop. They’re all of it. Once we realized we had three or four songs that were doing that, we said OK, that’s what we’re doing. That’s it. Let’s commit to it. We’re gonna be one of the only genre-less bands out there.

Obviously if you have a song that becomes popular then people will just say ‘Oh, you’re pop.’ Based on that, then Kings of Leon is pop, and I don’t think they would call themselves pop necessarily. It’s genre-less music, and because it’s genre-less, it fits any genre.

I do like the fact that some dude that only listens to Drake and Kanye and that kind of thing can find songs that he’s really into. And I like it that a girl that is only into the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Fleet Foxes or some indie bands can find songs that she likes. I like being able to connect to a multitude of an audience and have a very diverse audience. Every time we do a show that we headline, we look out into the crowd and it’s so hard to figure out who our actual audience is because it’s all over the map. Like 60 year old dudes and 20 year old girls. It keeps it interesting.

NL: You guys came out of the box with this huge, huge hit with “Apologize.” Did you feel any pressure to top it, or did you find that the pressure was off because now you already have that hit under your belt?

RT: I would say the pressure was off. Trying to top what apologize did would be like chasing the wind. That moment happened, and we’re grateful for it, but I don’t like it when artists try to write the same song over and over and over again. The unfortunate thing is that would probably be the most successful thing for us to do. There’s a part of me that just won’t let me do it. Like I look at other bands, and I’m not going to name them, that their second album is the same as the first, their third is the same as the second, and they’re able to keep putting out pretty much the same material over and over again and it keeps working, and they get bigger and bigger and that’s definitely one path to success, but my brain can’t let me do that. [Laughs] I’d just feel guilty, or sort of like I’m cashing in. I want to feel like I’m growing. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m cashing in. That prevents us from trying to copy songs like “Apologize.”

NL: Let’s talk about your songwriting for awhile, because you’re highly in demand. What do you think it is about your songwriting that people are attracted to when they ask you to write something for them?

RT: I try to do songs for other artists that make me feel something on an emotional level. That’s the only gauge I have to go by. If it makes me feel emotional — if the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, then I know there are going to be lots of people out there who also get goosebumps. The person to the left and right of me are going to get goosebumps. That’s my only gauge as far as mid-tempos and that kind of thing go. I try to write an honest lyric. I think the one thing that separates me from other writers who are just writers is that I’m an artist, so I write from an artist’s perspective. I write the kind of songs that artists want to sing. If I like the song enough to sing a demo of it, then it’s easier to connect it with an artist.

NL: Have you ever had a request from an artist to write a song for them and you had to respectfully decline because you just did not want that artist singing one of your songs?

RT: Yes. That’s happened quite a few times.

NL: Oh, really?

RT: That happens like once a week.

NL: Wow! Really?

RT: Yeah. I mean, it’s no offense to the artist, it’s more that I only have so many hours in the day — I’m in a band full time and I’m a writer/producer full time. I have two full time jobs. So for me, I’m at the point now in my life and career where I’m not going to give somebody a song — I don’t want to be associated with anything less than the best, so I don’t want to give somebody a song if I don’t feel that I can connect with that artist. If I don’t feel that I can deliver them a true hit or something that’s going to take them to that next level then I’m not even going to spend five minutes trying to. It’s all about inspiration for me. I’m not trying to see just how many songs I can get out there or how much money I can make. If I only have one hit a year but I was able to do it for the next 20 years, and every time I had a hit that song connected and was something special, then I’d rather be known as the guy who 20 years from now was able to do that than the guy who completely own 2008 to 2010, you know what I mean?

NL: Definitely! Being a writer, producer, and artist, you see so much in the industry. What’s the one thing you think needs to change?

RT: It needs to go back to being more about songs and not about trends. Don’t chase trends. The best songs should always win. Always put out your best songs. Forget if it’s an uptempo or ballad — the best song should always win. The music industry is based on songs, not trends. Not any of that. None of that means anything if you don’t have any truly great songs. So, I think the focus should always gear back more towards the art of songwriting and the craft of songwriting and trying to elevate that instead of trying to chase whatever the trend is or whatever the flavor of the month sound or style is. Find the best songs, attach them to the right — the best artists, and put them out.

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Waking Up is in stores now.

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