And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 39: Ryan Tedder

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

Kicking off Season 3 of And The Writer Is… we have a hit songwriter and Grammy-winning record producer who has penned songs for the likes of Adele, Camila Cabello, Ed Sheeran and has also worked with some music’s most influential legends such as Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé and Paul McCartney. This truly gifted writer had his first success in the music business when his own group released their song “Apologize” which quickly became an international smash, gaining the attention of hit producer and writer, Timbaland who included a remix of the song on his album “Shock Value” and signed the group to his label. This writer is Pop music’s go-to guy and frontman of OneRepublic, And The Writer Is… Season 3 welcomes Ryan Tedder!This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 3 of And The Writer is I am your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing and mega house music management if you want to listen to the songs we

discuss in this podcast follow us on our socials find out about special events or buy some of our merchandise go to our website www www.andthe writer is dot com oh and if you enjoy this podcast please rate us on iTunes or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is we really appreciate that effort today's podcast is brought to you by Ban Zougal. From Weekend Warriors to Grammy winners, Ban Zougal powers the website for tens of thousands of musicians around the world.

So whether you're just starting out or looking for an affordable solution to build a new website and manage your direct-to-fan sales, you can use Ban Zougal's simple tools to design a website and store that both you and your fans will love. Go to Banzugal.com to try it free for 30 days.

and be sure to use the promo code ATWI that's ATWI to get 15% off the first year of your subscription Welcome to and the writer is I am your host Ross Golan Today's writer-producer artist has won three Grammys, been nominated for six others,

sold more than 200 million songs, set the record for the most played song ever at Top 40 Radio and then broke his own record the same year. It all started when he was discovered on TV before. That was cool. After which, he got signed, got dropped, and got signed again. From Tulsa, Oklahoma, this guy's commitment to his craft is iconic and his loyalty to his band, collaborators, and most importantly, his wife and kids is legendary. And the writer is not just a foodie and real estate mogul, but also one of the two people who convinced me to pursue being a songwriter for people other than

myself, Ryan Tetter. What an introduction. That's so great. It's kind of crazy just thinking of when we met. Yeah. You know, like we kind of met before all this happened for any of us. And, you know, and to be in your new studio, which is not too far from the apartment that you were living in about 10 years ago.

Yeah, 10 years ago. You know, where you had to walk upstairs with your crutches because you had already busted in Achilles. Yeah, that's right. You know, and you're like living in that apartment 10 years ago and to be in, you know, essentially one of your places right now. And this is awesome. It's a trip.

It all started on Mansfield, man. So crazy. Yeah. Let's give a little bit of background. I mean, obviously, I know, you know, people can look you up if they don't know you. But let's start with when you were born. I was born June 26th. Do I have to say the day now?

No, you don't. Yeah, but 19 something. I'm a child of the 80s. Alright, there you go. I always, I had a, my first album was called Reagan Baby. Oh, yeah. But technically, I don't know if he had, I think he had won the election. I think, I think you and I are like identical age.

Yeah, I wasn't going to say, June 26, me and Ariana. Ah, same birthday. So you guys have the same year. Yeah, every, every 26th, I send her a happy birthday. I like that. Okay, so you're from Oklahoma and your family's into music. I mean, I know that they were. Yeah, I'm from Oklahoma.

My family, so my parents got divorced when I was five. My dad was a gospel singer and songwriter in the 70s and actually had, you know, toured around the world with a couple different, like, that's back when you had like the up with people, like the music, singing groups that went around doing stuff and gospel was oddly also in commercial music at that time. Like Bob Dylan was doing a gospel record and Larry Norman was having radio hits. So my dad was kind of part of that. that. He was writing songs. This is really funny. He was, he wrote the entire album.

Kathy Lee Gifford signed to CBS Records and like my dad wrote the album. This is back before she was ever on TV. She was a singer and a Vegas like a performer. And so my dad was kind of her the yin to her yang for a while and did a lot of that music. And then, um, she knows that. Yeah. She stopped me. I went to Regis and Kathy Lee back way when I was in college. I visited and she was walking past me and I said hey you know my dad she goes who's your dad and I said you know I'm Ryan Teter and she goes she like grabs me and like is shaking my face and like kissing me I mean she's she's she's Kathy Lee um so yeah anyway my dad did music and you know had a couple publishing deal offers he ended up getting married young and that's why he he ended up not pursuing

music to be honest and I think I probably had part to do with that and um uh then I'm trying to think my uncle is a, he's signed to one of the, like the Christian record labels and has been a worship leader for like 25, 30 years. So that's kind of the extent of my. So they're still into it. They're still into it. My uncle does that. My cousin Ashley was in a band called the Clark family experience. They had like one, one country hit forever ago. And then he's signed to like Simon Fuller's company. I mean, there's a lot of weird random music in my family. But the house I grew up in with my mom and my stepdad, not musical at all. Like zero, zero music. Were any of your family members envious of your success? If they were, if they were, I don't think they would say it. I mean, look, I had

cousins that I knew wanted to pursue music and were frankly better at it than I was at an earlier age, but I just, I'm kind of, unfortunately, my personality type is insatiable. So once I decide I'm going to do something, it is insatiable. Like I'm not stopping and I kind of put on blinders and just go. So I think there's, you know, look, one of my best friends growing up was, it was way more serious about music than I was. I mean, he talked about it all the time being in a band, wanted to be like Oasis, and he won battle of bands and was in a, you know,

for the state of Colorado and was in a successful band at the time. And so, and it didn't pan out. You know, it didn't pan out. I had a lot of, not a lot. I had some friends and family that wanted to pursue music and for one reason or another life got in the way. Yeah. Yeah. So when did you go from being a kid in Tulsa to, you know, I'm going to be a songwriter and an artist? I mean, so the truth of it is, is this. The divorce that my parents had caused me to be an only child. I didn't have any siblings. I didn't have any distractions. Not to say siblings are inherently distractions, but I didn't have the normal stuff that occupy. And this is before you and I grew up,

we had the internet during our, like, puberty is I pretty much when the internet came out for you and me. But we didn't grow up with iPhones and social media and distractions. We just, like, if you get home and you didn't have a Nintendo, you go outside or you draw cartoons, or you read or you, or if you're me, you sit down and you play piano and play guitar. And so, you know, Oklahoma, somebody told me once at an ASCAP event, there was a big, the number one country writer

that was on a panel with me, and I'm spacing on his name, but what he told me was, and I've, a few other writers have confirmed this for me in Nashville, there are more songwriters from Oklahoma than any other state in terms of like per capita, like the amount of people that are professional songwriters from Oklahoma is more than any, and that includes artists as well.

Wow. And if you go to Nashville, it's like every other person. And so I was sitting in a room one time, and I realized that all three or four writers were from Oklahoma. None of us realized it. And one of the, I don't do a lot of country music, but maybe once a year, I'll do a session. And it was like me, Carrie Underwood, another writer, another writer, and all of us were from Oklahoma. And we were like, why, why are we all here? and our conclusion is there's nothing to do in Oklahoma. If you don't play football and you're not a big drinker,

neither, which that's me, you know, the odds of you, and you have loads of church. So I think that's how did I get from like Tulsa to this? I had nothing but time. I was in church all the time surrounded by music and it was my escape. I would sit at home and watch movies like they were, they were my friends. I would watch movies on repeat,

and I became obsessed with acting and wanted to be an actor for a long time. I actually had a scholarship as an actor that I didn't take. Is that what you went to? What did you go to school for? I went to school. I have a degree in advertising and marketing

in a minor, which is pointless, in history, as we were talking about earlier. But acting was my first love, and that led me to musical theater and at a young age, and when I was doing, I was that dude from Glee, you know, that was like, would go from the, from basketball practice and sneak into the theater.

You know, a lot of my friends, I'm pretty sure, were convinced and family that I was gay growing up because when you do musical theater in rural Oklahoma in the country, and that's your passion, especially when one of the first plays you star in is some like it hot and you're in drag, which was me, you know, people make assumptions. Right. And so I wanted to be an entertainer. I love theater. I still to this day, I would do theater

in a heartbeat. I love being on stage. I love acting. But my teacher pulled me aside and said, look, you know, your voice, it's something different. Like you're a fine actor, but your voice is something really different. You should really focus on that. And so I did for hours every single day. and at the age, I'm giving you kind of the weird chronology of it. At age 15, 14, I discovered Diane Warren and Walter Afanasiaf and why am I spacing on his name is one of the,

he's right in there with all the best. Huge house in Malibu. I can't think of what his name is. I'm spacing on his name. But a bunch of the songwriters of the 90s, you know, like most people I grew up, assuming that if you're singing a song, you wrote it. Yeah.

And then my dad popped that bubble for me when I was about 14, 15. He said, you know, we're sitting there watching, I forget what movie, but the song comes on at the end of the movie. And it was a huge hit from that movie. Because in the 80s, that happened all the time. Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club. Thank you. Yeah, it was, this would have been like probably late 80s.

It might have been like Days of Thunder or something like that. So anyway, the song comes on. So the song is bigger than the movie. Where the song's bigger than the movie. That happened all the time. So the song comes on. I go, oh my God, it's amazing, you know. And my dad goes, yeah, so-and-so wrote that.

And I go, well, that's not who's singing it. And he goes, no, no, no, no. Singers don't write their own songs a lot of the time. And it was like you just told me Santa Claus isn't real, you know, or you don't have to pay taxes. I mean, it was literally the most mind-blowing concept. Exactly, exactly. Wait, what?

You don't have to pay taxes. And so it was the most mind-blowing concept. And so once you told me that, I said, well, who writes most the songs? And at that time, it was David Foster and Diane Warren wrote all the hits. So then I got on the internet and pulled up every song that the both of them had written and my head exploded. And that was the moment that I started getting serious about songwriting. Crazy.

So you move to Colorado one. I moved to Colorado. My senior year of high school in Oklahoma, I told, I went on a mission trip, came home and told my mom, I went to me. moved to Colorado. And a big part of it was, and this is not like talking smack about Oklahoma, because for anybody listening, this from Oklahoma, I just knew that my time there had run out. I had to get out of Oklahoma. I had to get somewhere else. And when I moved to Colorado, like 97, I had my aunts and uncles who were like worship leaders and they were at least into music

and culture and traveling. And those are three things that I knew I had to have in my life. even if it was like under the auspices of doing mission trips get me to paris get me to london get me out of of oklahoma i need to see you know some stuff and meet some interesting people that's a through line of all those writers that you've mentioned you know you're in nashville with those four writers from oklahoma you're not in talsa with those four writers from oklahoma no exactly a lot of times people ask you know like well how does somebody get discovered from wherever and part of it most of the time is we'll move move you just yeah all right move to the proximity has something to do with it and showing that you're willing to give up everything

yep to see what's behind you just number whatever you just quoted my number one my number one piece of advice like if people ask me how to get a songwriting you know there's there's let's say call it two or three things right number one i was i was at that same mass cap event that I was speaking at like probably five or six years ago a lady stands up you know they do the round of questioning at the end of the panel she stands up and she has this thick Dutch accent and she says to me hi you know I'm I'm I have cuts um on some you know European artists on major labels I'm I live in like Utrecht which is a beautiful city in Holland which I've toured and played and I love it there right there's million reasons to live in Utrecht Holland my cousin lives there actually

and she goes, but I find it very frustrating, and it's unfair why I haven't had hits and how can I make in the music business? I said, ma'am, where do you live? And I already knew the answer. She goes, Holland, I go, that's why. And she was like, what? I was like, move here.

We're in LA, move here, move to London or move to New York. But don't be in Holland. That's number one. Because if you don't, even with YouTube and all that stuff, unless you're trying to be a singer, you know, If you're a singer and you're amazing, you can get discovered and be in Biloxi, Mississippi, and labels might fly to you, right, or something, or they'll fly you out. If you're a songwriter, then you've got to go where it is.

Everybody wants the anomaly. They tell the story about, well, Dave Matthews, you know how they built their tour because they built their fan base because they toured all this. It's like, well, that was 25 years ago. Yep. And, yeah, they did it. I'm just saying that you want to go where the risk is the lowest in a way. So you have the best opportunity to succeed.

And a lot of times people fall back on the anomaly. Yeah. Everybody wants to tell the story. Like, well, yeah, but this writer doesn't live in L.A. It's like, yeah, no, I understand. I'm talking about the majority of them, though, choose to live in those cities for a reason. I didn't live in LA for the better part of a decade, but that was after my career took off

because I had seen Max living in Sweden, and so I knew it was possible if you had enough hits and a reputation that you could pull it off for a while, but even he moved back to L.A. And so did I, because it's, do you think it hurt you? Moving to Denver? Yeah, I don't know, do you think during that decade that? I had my biggest, it's hard to say, the biggest hits of my career came from the time I was in Colorado. If you remove like the first three,

but, yeah, bleeding, apologize, bleeding, love, and halo, we're all done in L.A. All the, anything else that I did that was, that was, of any report in the last eight years had been done in Colorado. Um, so it didn't hurt me when it started, and honestly, I think it kept, kept me sane.

Because as I told you earlier, I'm insatiable. When my career took off from one republic, it also took off as a writer at the same exact time to completely, independent careers. If I had stayed in LA and been accessible to all the labels, all the requests, all the so-and-so wants to get together, my marriage would have fallen apart. I probably wouldn't have the kids I have. It would have destroyed my life. So I knew that I personally needed to get out to have any kind of actual life. And then flash forward eight years, you're older, you're, you're wiser and you're not as much FOMO going on. And I knew a year and a half ago,

a year ago that I was like I can be back in LA now and not burn up and and and um you know and in a certain point too um it becomes way more taxing to not be here it's just you're making it harder on yourself to not be and I don't just mean LA London you can do London as well you know London's fine New York is sadly kind of it's hard its window has closed in New York um I still love I know there's some people are putting some money into an infrastructure in New York to try to bring it back, but until there's a

sort of state, citywide move towards helping artists survive with no income. Yep. It's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. You're better served moving to Toronto right now than you are to New York. You could get way more, you know, Frank Dukes is a good friend of mine. Yeah, T-minus is up there.

Yeah, and you know, Frank's sitting at like number one and number two in the world right now, and out of Toronto and when I'm up there I work with him, he's coming down here and it's kind of hilarious because I'm like, dude, you're crushing the planet and you're not in L.A. So, but you're doing it in Toronto. Toronto is about the only other hot scene. It's funny, when you and I moved to L.A. Or when you and I both, when, you know, when you were in glacier hiking and I was in what was called Republic back in the day, I don't know if you remember this because you weren't in the songwriter scene yet. You were like considering it. But the hottest city in the U.S.

Atlanta. That's where I was doing writing trips to Atlanta, which is crazy to even think about right now. Before we get there, you go, you get a college degree in advertising. Yeah, I don't know why I did that. Well, I mean, what you do right now is kind of advertising air.

There's some value in copyright in an advertising sense and somebody's writing a chorus. I mean, on some level. Yeah, for sure. That punchline is a sense. Punch lines, tags, donuts, all those, yeah. if I'm going to be level with you I picked the degree that was the easiest

advertising getting a degree in advertising I'm sure after Madman there's a lot more people getting that degree but I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I I coasted through that I just I got to have a job after college in advertising

no no absolutely not I am absolutely when a guy asked me I'm not joking there was two brothers Tony and I forget his other name but they they were starting a um oh my god tony and adam jones i can't remember their name they started a company in college and they liked i was in like a commercial for our college and and i and they whatever reason they like we hit it off they liked my personality and vice versa and um they they

wanted me to work for them they already had a profitable company uh they were a year ahead of me so i was a junior they're a senior they come and sit down they say we'd like to interview interview you for a job. And it's in PR in advertising. And I go, why? And they go, you know, because we, man, we like you. You're the vibe we want for our, for our company.

And I said, I'm going to be, I'm going to level with you, man. I would absolutely not hire me. I'm a junior. And they're like, what? That's the opposite of what you should be saying. We're offering you like, we can give you like 35 starting. I was like, no, I don't. I'd rather have 12 grand a year and sleep on a couch and be doing something else.

Like, it was, I didn't want to get a job in advertising. I switched degrees because I had some like overarching pre-MBA thing that was too hard. It just took too much my time. I knew that I wanted to go into music or acting by my freshman year. And I took a class called sequencing and digital. audio my freshman year and it introduced me to Cubase and my head exploded wait a minute I can produce my own songs without anybody I can just layer instruments what is this like and that's what set me off the chorus and the music and so then any class or course load that kept me from that room or from

the piano rooms which is where I was writing probably about five days a week I would kill that class So I realized, so I went to my advisor and I said, what's the easiest court? What is the easiest degree I could get? I just want to get out of here. And he goes, PR in advertising. And I go, done, switch me. And so I switched. And it freed up a bunch of time. And that's literally, I am where I am because I had kind of a coast college career where, and I wasn't dating intentionally. I mean, I'd go on date. I would date during the summer, but I wouldn't date during the school year, really with any, you know, very rarely simply because girls take up a lot of time. And I, I saw my friends that were getting locked down freshman, sophomore year with serious girlfriends.

I thought they were nuts. I'm like, look, I love girls as much as you do, but like, I'm not trying to get married right now. We're like 19, but when you're from Oklahoma, in a Christian community, 19 is when you should be shopping for a, for a fiancee. I mean, it's crazy. Like, they get married so young. I don't know if it's still happening, but early 20s is a reasonable time to get married and settle down and have kids and it was it you know that to me was like the polar opposite of what I wanted to do so I just I would skip class and go to the the writing rooms I call them the writing rooms they're the piano practice rooms but I would block out the window and and shut the door and and I would three two to three hours you know okay here's the deal I am technologically challenged I've always been

challenge, I barely know how to use this computer to record this thing that I'm recording right now. So I can guarantee you that I cannot build a website. And when I was in a band, I just needed something to help me build my band's website. Well, you are in luck because today's podcast is brought to you by Banzugal. Banzugal makes it easy to build a stunning website for your music in minutes. Choose from over 100 mobile. friendly themes. Then customize your design and content in a few clicks with Banzoogl's easy visual editor. All the features you need for a professional website are already built in, including tools to sell your music and merch commission free, write on your website, mailing list tools to grow your

fan list and send newsletters, integrations to pull in content from all your online services like Twitter, Instagram, and SoundCloud, and live support from their musician-friendly team seven days a week. Banzugal plans start at just $8.29 a month and include your own free custom domain name. Go to banzugal.com to try it for free for 30 days. And be sure to use the promo code, ATWI. That's ATWI to get 15% off the first year of your service. subscription. Banzoogel websites built for musicians by musicians. When do you start performing those songs that you were writing? I started performing them. So I wrote a I wrote a song. I want to say this is the summer after my junior year. I'm like 19 and I'd already written a bunch of songs on piano.

But I'll give you, I mean the summer that my whole life changed is the summer between my junior senior year, I applied four internships at five film studios and five record labels. Virgin Records, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Records. I sent out, I mean, and you go, this is before the internet would give you all this information. So I would call the complaint hotline on the back of a DVD or a CD. There was always a, if you have questions or complaints, please call. So I'd call the complaint hotline. It just is an idea that struck me one day. How can I get a hold of the HR department in a film studio, Paramount Pictures or Virgin, Virgin Records London, like Richard Branson's office. How can I call it? Call the complaint hotline and you go, you know, I'm sorry.

You know, can we, you know, I'm so and so Virgin Records, you know, what is your complaint? And I would go, oh, oh, I'm sorry. I was, I was actually being transferred to HR. And the person would go, oh, I can connect you. And they would literally connect me to HR. The person that HR would pick up, who was just a phone jockey. And I'd say, they'd pick up, they say, you know, hi, this is Christine. How can I help you? And say, oh, I'm sorry, I was just on hold with the director of HR.

I would just like, I'm sorry, I got reconnected. Sorry, I was already on hold. Can you put me back on hold for them? Oh, yeah, I'll put you right through. And lo and behold, I would have a director of human resources. at a label or a film studio, pick up the phone, and I'd say, hey, I know this is random, but I'm calling you from a college dorm, and I don't even want to tell you what it took to get you on the phone, but I want to work for you for free. And that was my pitch. And I did that a bunch

of times and would take down all the information. And eventually I got turned down from Virgin, turned down from Paramount. And I kind of literally put it, I told my parents and told God, if a film studio gives me an internship this summer, I'm going into acting or producing. If a record label or a publisher gives me a gig, I'm going into music. And I literally just, that was going to be my decision. And I get an offer from DreamWorks Records and publishing.

I come out to L.A., I interview with this guy. And he goes, I don't have a position for you, but I can give you DreamWorks publishing Nashville. It's like Nashville. I don't do country music. It's like, that's all you got, buddy. So I go to Nashville that summer. Do you know who that guy was?

Because that would be, yes. You're not going to believe this. I am 99% sure it was, it was super young, like, junior A&R, Benjamin Groff. Benjamin Groff? From Cobalt. Really? That's cool. I'm like 99% sure he's the guy that interviewed me like forever ago.

Crazy. Like I can't confirm that. I could probably find out. But I ended up working for Abby Demesh. at she's in nashville they're called chicks with hits i think they still exist and abby nemesh um was my main person that i was working under uh for the summer and james stroud who ran dreamworks and scott porchetta who is the gm who is now obviously taylor swift and big machine and all that and um scott and i talked about this a few months ago actually it was funny so long story short i go to

nashville i'd already written some songs in my dorm room at o'er you and i first song i'd written was this really cheesy ballad that basically sounds like a fake baby face and I I'd written that in a bunch of stuff on piano

how does it go you put me on the spot now it's like is it possible maybe I'm not even gonna try to sing it it's too early so it da da da da da da da da da da da

da da da da da so it's a it's a very cheesy baby face song you can Google it So I go into ASCAP. This is how my, I mean, I haven't told this story I think maybe ever. I get to Nashville. At this point, I clearly, I'm, you know, obviously I don't really give many shits.

I will just knock on anybody's door, open it, get in their living room and be like, oh, I'm sorry, I was already here. What's, what's going on? And so I get to Nashville. Day one, I drop my bags at this dude's apartment, couch crashing. I drive to ASCAP and my dad had told me a long time ago ASCAP is required.

If you have signed up and paid the $7 fee, they are required to service you. They are required to help you. So I go in and I'm like, I'm an ASCAP member and I need some help. I need some connects. I need you to like take me around,

whatever, whatever. And I go into meet with this guy, Mike Doyle, and he blows me off for six weeks. every week I'm calling him. And I have a meeting, he cancels. Meeting cancels. I go into ASCAP, I pay 50 bucks. I demo this song called The Look

and one other song on piano, on an ADAT. And 50 bucks is all I had at the time. So that was pretty risky. I go in to the orientation meeting at ASCAP. I'm sitting in the room. A guy gives his spiel. Welcome to ASCAP.

All these people just moved to Nashville. And it's like the summer of 2000. And then I walk up to the guy at the meeting. I go, hey, so I only have two and a half, half months here before I have to go back to college. I want to get a record deal and a publishing deal before the end of the summer. And he dies laughing. He goes, son, there are people who have been here for 10 years that haven't gotten a publishing deal. Like, that's just never going to happen.

That's impossible. And they like shattered my expectations. Long story short, I end up in a meeting with Mike Doyle. He's running ASCAP, the pop division. I'm sitting there. He's not even looking at me. He's like reading a newspaper, putting eye drops in his eyes leaning back in the chair and I hit play on the thing and all of a sudden he like puts his eyedropper down stops and gets in a dead stare and he goes play that again and I play it again and he goes what are you doing this week and I go nothing and he goes I need you tomorrow in the next day we're we're going to make the rounds he takes me around introduces me to every publisher writer that weekend audition for a TRL this is before being on television was a thing really

this is like I think American Idol started this this the same summer or year that I did this. And I, I auditioned at a planet Hollywood to be on this TV show that's going to give you a record deal. And in sync is somehow involved in this. Like they're Lance Bass and, you know, Brian McKnight is a judge and Pink is a judge. And so I go up, everybody's doing cover, cover songs, some boy bands and all this. I get up with the acoustic guitar and sing the song. And I come down and the, and everybody says the, the main judge, Bob and Wiley, she goes, you're going to win this competition. I'm waiting tables at this dodgy place on Second Street in Nashville called Prime Cut.

And she calls me, she goes, congrats, you've won the national search. You're one of four finalists. You're going to be on TRL in two weeks. We'll fly you to New York. We'll give you the information, blah, blah, blah. I go to New York. Online vote was like 30% of the vote, and then the rest was the judges. And by the night before the competition, I had 85% of the.

the online vote. And TRL did this expose on me and Tulsa and all this stuff. I get on the next day, perform the song, win a record deal. That wasn't really a record deal, but I win. And that's really what started my career. And DreamWorks James Stroud offered me a publishing deal. And I turned down at that point, because I knew I had the TV thing going, I turned down every publishing deal. And my attorney was like, keep your publishing, keep your publishing, as long as you can keep it, keep it. So that's really where my career started, was that whole summer in Nashville. Who is the record deal with? The record deal, that's the dodgy part.

It was Lance Bass's company. And it was basically the fine print was you win the opportunity to have a record deal. So he did, he was righteous, very righteous about it. He took me around to a bunch of record labels. I mean, I met with everybody. I met with everybody, Jimmy Iveen, and I met with Craig Calman and whatever. And I had an offer from DreamWorks Publishing

and a couple others. And during my final year in college, I'm in a dorm room, and about every six weeks, I get on a plane to L.A. or New York to play more songs and meet with more people. Did everybody in college know what was going on? They did.

Everybody watched it. So that's your first time, like, feeling kind of like fame. It made it super awkward. I mean, there were guys, I remember one guy walked up to me two months into college. I didn't know how to act because everybody had seen it. And I was known people.

I walked through the lunch room and I'd see people pointing and whispering. That's the kid that just wanted, you know, and it was so awkward. My senior year was really awkward because of that show. I remember one kid that was friends with came up one time and like cornered me. It was like, yo, you think you're hot shit, man, just because you won this record. I was like, dude, where did you get that from? Like, I'm not doing it. Do you see me like flossing, like, you know, fancy watches and, you know, crazy shit?

It was really uncomfortable. People would be surprised to realize how many people who are famous that are really anxious and are highly shy and nervous about the fact that people are watching them. Yep. And that it's really not their goal. I mean, one of the things that you realize from living in L.A. is that people who are famous aren't necessarily rich, and people who are rich aren't really necessarily famous.

Yeah. And you'd be surprised when you see somebody that you recognize from a commercial or a movie or a TV show or a band that's like they may not know how to act because it's weird and uncomfortable and unnatural. It is very unnatural. And by the way, it makes you come off way way more dickish than you actually are because you're kind of, you'll walk into a room and know. And then our band takes, our band blows up in like 08 and then I moved to Colorado and all of a sudden, I'm like going into like Christmas parties and like birthday parties where in Denver, like I'm the only famous person in that room and we're everywhere at that point. And I didn't know how to act.

I probably came across as an absolute dick, not because I was, but because I didn't know I was so awkward to have everybody. I spent most of my life liking disappearing into the background. It's taken me, I think it took me five or six years of being in that band and doing television to finally enjoy it and be completely natural in front of camera in front of people, not be insecure, not be weird. It took me half a decade to come to grips with it.

Longer, it took me 10 years to come to terms with that. And I think how most bands get about one song shot worth of learning about all these mistakes and how to deal with people. And that's why so many artists have, a lot of artists who are one-hit wonders is because when you get that one-hit, how to become a human in that case.

It's so difficult. It's so difficult. It's so difficult. Because I think you said it, it's not natural. It's just not natural. And, you know, so to finish, I'll do a very succinct summary of the chronology of those last, leading up to when I met you, I finished college by the skin of my teeth. I finished college. I still don't have a record deal.

But at this point, I'm moving back to Nashville because it's the only place I know. even though I wanted to go to L.A., Nashville's way cheaper. So I, in between that, I moved to New York, I graduated college, I moved to Hoboken, and I'm living in this house with these guys. I got recruited to be in a band, and then I get there and I find out it's a boy band. And so, and funny enough, the person that told me to run was Timberlake.

I met Justin through this whole TRL thing, so I've known Justin since probably 2000 for a long time and been friends with him. We're not like besties texting each other two in the morning, but we're, you know, been close enough for the last however many years. And I'm in the studio with them while they're finishing celebrity. Like they were doing, you know, dirty pop and all that stuff. And we're kids.

And he goes, what are you doing in New York? And I go, let me play some songs. I play it for me. He goes, man, that ain't you. He's like, that's not you. You need to be a solo artist or start your own band. Like, you don't mess around with it. If it's not a band band, don't mess around.

around with it. Don't do this. And he was like referring to boy band. And I was like, no, I know I'm not doing that. I just have to figure out what my sound is. And he's like, well, whatever, you need to get the hell out of that, like run for the hills. And so I walk away from that. I moved to Nashville, right. I was living in New York basically up until the Twin Towers fell, which was weird. Because my little jogging path was from Chelsea down to the Twin Towers and back. That was like my three mile route. And so it was kind of weird to have that happen. But, I moved to Nashville. I spend a year and a half in Nashville just writing, kind of leveraging the TV exposure I had to get me into sessions, getting some cuts here and there, getting some more

publishing offers, flash forward to like 2002, let's say, and I have the idea of 2002, 2003, I have the idea for Republic. And what happens is like at some point in 2003, like the beginning of I write, I sit down at piano and I just bust out some chords and I'm like, ah, these chords feel good. And I'm spending a year and a half looking for my sound as a solo artist. And I'm playing some chords and I'm at my dad's house in Colorado and I stumble upon the chords of Apologize and I immediately write the chorus. I have the chorus like that and then like the opening two lines of the song. Were you apologizing? for something? No, I was

writing, and as people know in one Republic, we don't do a lot of songs that are you know, the blessing and the curse of my band is that 99% of any hits or records we've had, they're not relationship-driven songs. We write about life and kind of experience and like internalism

and all these things, which makes it way way, don't start a band. Don't start a band with that as your primary script because it's way harder. But apologize is the only song, really, that was like ever, that was a relationship. And it was me writing like my kind of pent up angst and disappointment over every relationship I had in high school and college. And there was like

two or three girls in particular that like really, I mean, broke my heart. They genuinely did. And I was very serious about my interest in girls. I wasn't just like dating to play around. And so I got burned and that's what led to apologize. I think that's why people connected with it. But That's kind of the chronology of Nashville to New York City to, in 2002 and three, I was in New York a ton and I was in Nashville. Timbalin happened to watch that TRL show. He calls me a year later, out of the blue, and we talk for three hours on the phone. This is him while he's doing Nellie and Justin and Missy Elliott. He's at the peak of his career and he calls me out of the blue in my 300 a month apartment in Nashville.

It says, I want to sign you to a production deal. And I'm going to fly you to Miami, fly you to New York, and we're going to start writing. And I end up spending about two years, a year and a half, two years, from mid-0-01, or like, no, beginning of 2002 to basically 03, following Timblin around the country, jumping in on some co-rides with him, doing Bubba Sparks, doing background vocals on Missy Elliott.

Like, I heard Crimee a River the night they did it. You know, I was there for all those moments, for a lot of them. And so I got that kind of, you know, that vibe got into me. And so when I apologize, in the sound of One Republic is effectively the music that I grew up loving, i.e. Brit, pop, rock, oasis, the Beatles, doves, a lot of British bands. It's moody British music combined with, like, hip-hop, which is, i.e., the Timberlin years. And so that's kind of what informed the sound of our band. And that leads me to meeting you.

You get signed to Columbia. Yes. And then get dropped from Columbia. And then signed to Mosley, which is Tim's label, at Interscope. Is it the same band? It's all the same, not all the same guys. It's some of the same guys. The original band was called Republic.

And it was the original band was Jared Bettis, who's now a writer-producer that I think lives near you, actually. Jared Bettis, me, Zach Filkins, Timothy Myers, Tim Myers, who's a successful like musician,

songwriter, jingle writer, all this stuff. And that's the original four. And then Drew Brown, who joined, Zach got married and he filled in

for a week during his honeymoon in like 04. And when Zach came back, we said, surprise, we have five guys on our band now. Yeah. So,

and Drew was in a, um, Screamo metal band. And so that's the original band. It was Republic, which I still kind of wish it was Republic. I've always loved the simplicity of that. And then it evolved. We had, as every band does, we went through four drummers, four drummers and two bass players. And the band as it is now is from 2007. So it's basically been a little over 10 years. First gig that we ever played, this is going to kill you first gig we ever played as a band as one republic like signed to or i think we might have been where we signed or dropped at this point i forget but was with glacier hiking

wow yep yeah you're my cat dude USC USC you so i sent an email to a bunch of people i knew at USC that were still students and stuff and i was like you guys have to come see this i promise you like this band's going to be huge you know we had just sort of started our thing and i remember telling them, like, you gotta see this. And they didn't realize that in, like, what they missed. Because I think we played for about 30 people. Yeah, we did. We played for 30 people, and then a marching band showed up or something like that. And by the way, it was freezing. It was like the coldest day I've ever experienced in LA. People don't realize that, like, when we played at the, we played at the Roxy, maybe, I don't know, maybe we played together

a few times. I think we played probably three or four times. Yeah. And there was one show we played at the Roxy and it was right maybe right before or after the Timbalin album came out. And the next time I saw you guys, we played the show together at the Roxy. The next time was I saw you guys was at Madison Square Garden. And that was six weeks later. And I remember thinking like when it breaks, it breaks. It breaks. It breaks.

We got to give a shout out to Brett Starr. Shout out, Brett Stare. So Brett Stare comes into the picture. And Evan Bogart. And Evan Bogart. So this is, all right, so let me, you know what, talking about what we said earlier, about moving to L.A., moving to the city that matters. Evan Bogart, Brett Stare, that's why you, moving to a city that matters,

moving to the city that has what you want in it is so critical. These two guys were instrumental in our career as a band and me as a writer. Evan, I met, God, forever ago in Miami when I was signed to Timlin down at the Hit Factory. and Brett I went to elementary school with in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And long story short, I'm at an in and out. I'm at an in and out in 2004. I'm in an in and out getting burgers. And Brett Stare goes, Ryan Tetter?

And then Brett's like, yo, Ryan? And I'm like, yeah. And I go, oh my God, Brett Stare. And Evan Bogart, who some people listening may know, goes, yo, I met you in Miami, like two years ago. And it was this weird alchemy of just like... They were agents at APA. They were agents at APA.

We didn't have an agent. We had nobody to book us, nobody to do anything. Long story short, I said, hey, yo, we're playing a show Friday. I'm in a band. We're playing a show Friday at like the knitting factory or the troubadour, fill in the blank wherever. Brett goes, yeah, man, I'll come down. I just signed up as a junior agent at APA.

They come down and they love the song. in the show, they end up signing us. And Evan and Evan then helped us get signed to Columbia. And Brett, both of them combined, really were instrumental in guiding where we went, where we played. We toured, California is so amazing. It's so big. You can tour it like a country. So the 2004, 2005, 2006, we toured the hell out of California, as I'm sure you did too. And I remember opening up for quiet drive. I remember opening up for the bravery at chain reaction in Orange County. We played with the bravery, quiet drive. We opened up for we opened up Sherwood, the big California, Northern California band. We opened up for

oh my God, what's the, plain white T's? Remember the plane white T's? I think I think we had like same arrow we played it with Hiam at the Echo and we played with like Ray LaMontaine open for my band in 2004 or something. It was like his first show in front of nobody. Dude. I think maybe like six people were there to see Ray LaMontaine. I'm jealous. Yeah, and he's there

he's sitting there go travel Yeah, no, and it literally got to him because it was when Jamie Serretta brought him in it's a whole other thing. Anyway, yeah, it's crazy. To Brett's stairs credit. To breath stairs credit. I mean, now he, you know, he found you, they were in, he Alpine glacier hiking.

He found Bobby Internoff, who's now about to release something with Hollywood and Sarah Hayes, who's had number one songs as a writer in Nashville. Brett found a lot of talent. And the hard part is being an agent in an L.A. or a town scout, and he worked for me for a while as an R way before I was ready to have a label or an R. The other thing that happens, if you have a huge success on a label, labels will oftentimes like kind of force you to take an imprint record label which is more or less what happened to me like what do I do with this I don't know but you have to go sign people

and Brett I just thought I loved him and he did good ears and he's a good hang and so I brought him along for the ride which was which was fun but Brett and Evan both have a unique history and finding talent like seven years before it pops like Evan discovered him and him yeah little known fact In LA, people know it. People at Interscope know. Evan was in the mailroom. He got the tape, sent from Detroit, listened to it, thought it was amazing, brought it to, you know,

bringing it up to Jimmy's office. Like, he discovered Eminem. Brett, you know, more or less, you could argue he helped discover One Republic and you as a songwriter. Yeah. So you guys, you guys now are one Republic at USC,

well, not at USC. You play the show at USC. You're assigned to Timbalin now at Interscope. No, when we did the USC show, Yeah, you're right, you're right. Right around that. When we signed, sorry, when we played USC, we were in the process of signing to Timlin.

What, we broke, the one little element that we're leaving out of the story is when we get dropped, we get dropped by Columbia, the week we play Coachella. So, and this is important to say just because it's part of the true history of this band, our first album that was going to come out on Columbia Records was an alternative rock album with a couple pop songs. Our first single was called Sleep, which is a five and a half minute long Jeff Buckley kind of sounding record.

We were an alternative band. That's all I listened to. I wasn't trying to do big. We had apologized and stop and stare. There was the only two kind of pop-leaning records we had, and they didn't sound like the Timbalin version. Tim did the remix. When we get dropped by Columbia,

which I thought was a huge middle finger, they dropped us and Katie Perry in the same month. And we play Coachella. the year that daf punk and madonna did, which was pretty good year to play, and we get home and I change our status on MySpace from signed to unsigned.

Because I thought, we're unsigned now. Technically Columbia owns the music, but screw them. We're going to post these songs. And I told the band, I said, guys, I'm going to put up, apologize and stop and stare online. This is the ad, you know, before SoundCloud and YouTube was the thing.

MySpace was the jam. Quarter billion people on planet Earth trolling MySpace. I'm going to put up these songs if we don't get a reaction from these songs, we should dissolve the band. But if we don't get a reaction from Apologize or Stop A Stair, I shouldn't be a songwriter.

Like I should literally consider picking a different career. So we post-apologize, Stop Stair. Within three months, Apologize was the most played song on MySpace, and we were the number one unsigned artist on MySpace. And Colby Colley was the artist right before us, and she got signed off Myspace. She was with Bubbly, that song that her and Jason Reeves did. ironically she was the girl the 16 year old sitting on the couch in the studio while we did all our demos

she was just a local she lived in the neighborhood in ogora hills and and i knew her from that and then she blows up and and timblen found us again on my space with apologize and calls me and goes i want to sign you to interscope and we we were doing our own shows at that point playing the avalon and you know the observatory and all that stuff that APA had booked for us and when Apologize the remix came out it blew up as you know very quickly and the only problem was it didn't sound like the band

and so we went from being an alternative band that was going to break at alternative radio which is still in our core where our heart is to alternative radio won't touch us with a 10 foot pole because Apologize was a huge pop record and I kept saying I remember telling Kevin Weatherly but it's a remix it's a remix dude, come on. Stopping stairs

perfect for K Rock. It's like, no man, we can't touch it. We can't touch it. And so that was a huge moment in our career because it basically gave us a you either become a pop band or you're done. And so we've kind of, the last 10 years just been navigating all

starting with that one remix. So crazy. When you mentioned Coachella, I just feel like we should do this segment here called What would Benny Blanco ask Ryan Tedder? And he says, would you rather headline Coachella Sunday night and get $0 or get $2 million and play the smallest 10 stage at noon on Thursday for 100 people?

Headline Coachella Sunday night, $0. Okay. But let me answer it like Benny. Yeah. I don't know. The question's weird. That's a stupid question. Yeah.

No, Sunday night's better. Okay. so you guys are, that's really impressive. So you guys are, you guys become the biggest band in the country and one of the biggest bands in the world with this single, you know, which brings me to the next segment,

which is what would Brent Cutsle ask, Ryan Teter? And he says, goat cheese or smirnoff ice? Smearnoff ice. Interesting. Smearn off ice. Anybody that knows me,

there are like two or three things on planet earth that that I find more repellent than Satan and goat cheese is one of them. Ah, okay. So you'd rather smear enough ice? I'd rather smear enough ice and like, yeah, I would rather get iced. Is he here? Is he going to ice? Okay, because I iced him just a few days ago. Okay. Okay. I'm like looking around the studio, wait a minute. I'm going to get ice today. I can feel it. Okay, so apologize is huge and, you know, the thing that's crazy is when all the parts of your career take off at once. And you couldn't plan it any better or worse than this. Better or worse, yeah. You know, you end up with, apologize is just so big. It's so big. It's everywhere. Everybody

listening to this knows it. It's one of those things where all you want to do is write a song where you can say the name of the song and people can sing it. Yep. You know? And then right on the heels of it is bleeding love and I know you've talked about this before but in the context of going from you were singing

the feature of glacier hiking like that song saved some during this how crazy is that to be you're like writing songs and doing some stuff with friends and living in an apartment in L.A. with the two biggest songs in the world

Yeah. Like, how do you cope with walking up two flights of stairs to an apartment and also knowing that you have the biggest songs? Two biggest songs in the world. One and two, and both of them are breaking records. I'm a person that appreciates irony. And, you know, I don't, while I appreciate the finer things in life, I also am actually pretty basic.

And like we're sitting in this nice studio here that costs way too much and is bigger than I need. But, you know, yesterday I was shopping online for $4,000 late 80s sobs because that's what I'm trying to track down a sob, you know, a sob 900 that suits my needs. So I appreciate irony and the guys in my band do too. So for me, I thought it was hilarious. and part of me being in Denver, I think the first three or four years, the irony alone just kept me elevated because I was like, I'm living in Denver doing Adele and Beyonce

and that, I'm not doing it in L.A. and not doing it anywhere. I appreciated the irony. And so for me, there wasn't even a coping thing where I think that, and I thank God for that. I think that's from being raised how I was in Oklahoma. I was like, well, this doesn't change who I am. And I actually, if anything, was a little bitter. I go, cool.

everybody's calling me now where were you three months ago i was just a good a songwriter 90 days ago as i am right now i'm not demonstratively better and yet because bleeding love which i was told to my face quote unquote is not a hit shouldn't even be a single and you know like i you know i had i appreciated the fact that it was you know some kind of vindication and um you know for me it was also the impetus that got me to leave LA because it created a watershed thing. Here I am in Austria. I'm like in the airport in Vienna,

you know, taking phoners from a radio station in Chicago for one republic while I'm in hotel rooms trying to finish, you know, the mix on Jordan Sparks' battlefield. You know what I mean? Or whatever the next song was that I was trying to get out. And I was juggling, spending so many people, plates. And so for me, I was like, I can't be in LA. That's it. I mean, in a weird way, those two things happening at the same time was what led me to leave LA. I was like, it's too much.

I got to get out of here. I have to have some kind of gate that prevents everything from pouring in. I need to get out of here. I was in Western Romania during that same time. And I was as you do. I was eating, I was eating goulash in a town somewhere between Arati and Timeshua, Romania. and apologize came on and I was with my family and I was like and they had seen us play together

and they'd be like see this is what this is what you kind of aim for it's like you write a song in L.A and it's possible that it could be at this random like in Romania truck stop kind of thing

in Western Romania and it gets so big so fast you can't you know no matter how much you tour or you write or you record it's like a hit does a kind of tour that you can't physically do in your entire lifetime. A hit record is a true smash is 10 times better than a medium-sized hit

because the medium-sized hit requires all the work in the world. It requires getting on a plane and circumnavigating planet Earth. A true smash does the work for you. And, you know, I mean, ask Sia. She doesn't promote anything. But, you know, when it, but when she delivers, a smash, it's like she is promoting it, you know? And yeah, you're absolutely right. A buddy of mind on our second album, I think around the time Secrets was out. The Secrets are Good Life.

He was in a van with 30 Nepalese people on the outskirts of Kathmandu, and it was playing on the radio. And he texted me from Kathmandu, and it was like, dude, this is ridiculous. You're touring those places. Yeah, you're touring that. Exactly. You're culturally part of their, you know, you're part of, you're in the ether, you know, kind of everywhere in the world. So having apologized and bleeding love in 2007, then 2008, you have Halo and you have Stop and Stare, you know, that's basically when they, at least peeped they were written before that.

But to have Halo, you co-write with your agent and your friend, Evan Bogart. At that point, because that song's huge. do you start thinking it's easy? I would say if any, if any song made me think it's easy, it would be Halo. And that's a tricky thing. Because you weren't supposed to be right.

I know sort of the story. Yeah, yeah. And Evan will tell you, it was written in under three hours and produced. I was producing it as I was writing it. I was throwing the track together. Part of what made it easy was any producers listening can relate to this

with me. You have moments like, you know, the craft of songwriting is a very specific thing. And if you truly understand the craft, there shouldn't be an era or a time where you're not able to write a hit record. And I know that sounds stupid for me to say, but I truly believe that. Maybe not every month or not every, obviously not every day. Sometimes you all have years, but you will always end up finding culture will align with what you're writing. Producing is different. Producers, If you have a hot hand as a producer with a sound and your sound gets big enough for a moment, then the world wants that sound. So, because you're not chasing, you're not having to adhere or pay attention to what's current

because you are creating what's current. That, I was in that, like, window that there was a three, I've had a few of those windows. That was the first one. There was like a two to three year window where I'm not listening to what anybody else is doing. Okay? I'm literally just sat down, threw up some drums that felt dope to me, some chords that felt right, some sounds. I'm not overthinking it. And Evan and I both had, you know, very good relationship in writing.

So that part was easy. And it was easy. I'm not going to lie. And I think I'm probably- Battlefield and already gone. They're all like... Yeah, already gone. They all sound really natural and sound like you.

They sound like me. Battlefield, already gone. Stop and stare. Halo. they all feel yeah like like me because at that moment I was a brand new producer and so my sound was derivative

of only myself and so it wasn't there was no copying anything it was just it was just this is this is my sound now my sounds evolved I still love that vibe but you evolve as you do and then shortly after that two or three your window

literally I would say at the tail end of, I could, if I thought long enough, I could tell you what the last kind of big record I did in that moment was, or probably around 2009 or 10, and then it became, you get 2010, and it becomes Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Kesha, Katie Perry Land, like that just takes over the airwaves. And it shifted, it represented a unique shift and the sonic taste of the world. And so then when that happened, of course, naturally guys like me and whoever else had had a bunch of hits those previous years we're all going okay time to like pull up our bootstraps and figure out our voice in this new era and how do we how do we it's hard it's hard and i mean you're you then have to

as people always talk about like the sophomore album and how hard that sophomore yeah album is but like the um the sophomore equivalent album as a songwriter is also a thing it's also a thing dude It's like people have to follow up their runs in a certain way and become something different because eventually it dries up. That time when you get to the end of, let's say, already gone, because that would have been, I had a run of about five. There's five or six starting with like going back to Natasha Bettingfield and then going through to already gone. It was probably about a three-year window and apologize and the Wonder Republic stuff. we get to 2010. We're at the beginning of Gaga and Black Eyed Peas, Boom Boom, Pau, and Kesha and Dr. Luke is beginning to have his run.

Max is having it, you know, ushering back in his run. Benny is entering into the scene. All, you know, our friends and collaborators, well, mostly our friends. And that moment's happening. and I'm having a panic attack internally because from a band's perspective, I'm going, wow, and the era of the band is coming to an end, like the sound, right?

And we drop all the right moves, which took like nine months and then finally turned into a decent size hit. And that's the song that I had written and produced in a hotel room in Luxembourg, which is just, I don't know why I just remembered that, but it was so random. And I remember being in a panic with the band going,

guys we don't sound anything like this luke's sound is so big that it's like if you don't fit into that there's that nervousness of like oh my god we're not gonna it's not gonna work and and we just roll the dice completely and said you know what we've never chased what anybody sounds like yet we still somehow sound modern enough let's just do what we do and so then as a band we put out secrets and good life and those two connected bigger than all the right moves and that's what carried us through the next two years good life is huge good life and then as it and that became a licensing beast and that's funny enough another song that makes you feel like writing is too easy i wrote that and i'm not joking i wrote that song in like 20 minutes it was literally just like

i heard that that drum loop and then i started doing the ooze and the oz like layering in and it just I think the brand, and I envy those songs, because I do this every day, like, when a song takes 20, 30 minutes, you're just like, why can't that be every time? Like, seriously, why do some songs take literally a month? Like, you're just revisiting, revisiting, revisiting it. And I try not to get jinxy about it. You know, like if a song really takes digging in, doesn't mean it's a bad song. You know, apologize, took six months for me to crack. Meanwhile, Halo took three hours and Good Life took 20 minutes. You just never know. Rumor has it comes out the same time. Rumor has it in Turning Tables. Well, no, Turning Tables and come up. Rumor has it came out. Yeah, Adele. I mean, as big as anything you had done before,

singles-wise, like that Adele album is, you know, top-10 selling album all-time kind of thing. And equivalent-wise would be thriller if it was, if it was 1985. You know what I mean? it's a I guess it's 83

but whatever the case the idea of Adele being you know being involved in that project did you know going into it that as much as you liked the song and as much as you liked Adele did you have any ideas that this was going to be

the real in a weird sort of it was like a real game changer and a real evolution of you as a writer it feels like um I had one call with my manager when there was a moment when I briefly misplaced the session files and I was calling the studio in L.A. or in London for Rumor has it, panicking. Because what happened is Rick Rubin,

she went in to do the whole album with Rick Rubin after getting our demos from me and Paul Epworth and a bunch of others. And then ended up coming back to the demos. I didn't know it was going to sell 30 million copies. I knew that it was the most important thing I'd ever worked on. I told my manager, I remember yelling at her. at the time because I was so distressed. I said, you don't, she goes, why are you so stressed out?

I mean, well, you know, it's Adele. She's, nobody even knows. I go, you don't understand. You don't understand. This is the most important thing I have ever worked on. Most important thing. I don't care what her past is or what you think of her. This, I'm telling you, this is the single most important thing I've ever, that I've

worked on. I just knew. I didn't know what it was going to go on to do, but I knew in my gut. furthermore and you'll see as now that now that I can tell that we're going you know chronologically through songs you'll see these gaps whenever you see like a a gap in my career as a songwriter those are the moments when one republic has taken over like time like I'm on the road touring whatever so I had had our second album I think this is around the time of our second album I had been furiously working on that and blown off every other artist I

I think I did one song. I did happy with Leona and I did like, I'm leaving something out. I did one other single. I had done barely, I did like something with Adam Lambert. I did barely any writing with other artists for like a solid year other than one.

And the only artist I worked with really in that time was Adele. So it had, I was, there was so much pressure for me internally as a writer because I'm trying to keep both careers going at all times, which is the nightmare, by the way. Still is. And so Adele for me, being that those are the only two songs really that I did in a year with anybody that was not one republic, it was so precious to me that it did sound right and that it did work. And I was so proud of rumor has it.

In my brain, I knew that it was the most interesting thing I had produced. And in the strangest way, that specific. We did turning tables first, which is me basically riff, like trying to write colorblind. by, why am I spacing on their name? Counting Crows. But rumor has it. I sat down that day, and this is before the whole folk gospel thing had exploded.

So it was really strange because I was like, are you cool if we do a dirty, bluesy gospel thing? And she goes, I can't believe you just said that. I just did a song with Paul Epworth. And I go, who's that? I didn't know who that was. Nobody knew who he was at the time. She goes, I just did a song with Paul.

that is that vibe. And if we do one here now, that could be like the sound of the album. I didn't know, but the song she was referring to was rolling in the deep. And I come in and do rumor has it. And I just started stomping and playing this kind of radiohead guitar riff.

And, I mean, first thing out of her mouth, she, she ain't real, she ain't gonna be able to love you like I will. You know, like immediately. She wrote it, stream of consciousness, She knew exactly it was about. And again, another one of those days where you kind of pinch yourself and go, why was that so easy?

Why can't every day be that easy? That sounds offensive to me because that's one of the few songs in the last 10 years. I'm like, fuck, I wish I wrote that. I've had a few of those that I wish I wrote. Trust me. You know, love somebody in Maps. Maroon 5 hits, they're a different situation. So I think it's different when you become part of the defining,

songs of people's careers. Not to say those weren't defining songs, but like, you know, the bleeding loves and the halos and burn for Ali Goulding, like those things to me feel like... They're their career defining. Their career defining. Love somebody we got lucky.

I'll just say this. I did it with a dude. We were chasing. I think it's fair to say with the songs you're always chasing. We love somebody, me and Nat from... 303 who lived in Boulder came in to do one session in Denver one day and 303 had their moment and we wanted to do

Robin what is it boyfriend or whatever I think it's the song girlfriend what is it called? It's the one that's like done dun dun dun dun dun dun dun like Not dancing on my own It's either dancing on my own or whatever the song is that's called like your girlfriend

I wish I was your girl I'm forgetting the name on it We were chasing Robin record and I'd done Lucky Strike without He came out for a week. This is right after the voice popped off. And he came out for a week in Denver. We did Lucky Strike, which I was hoping was going to be the first single. But the funny thing happens about getting the last single on an album.

Because I'm actually thinking I'm dealing with that right now. You either kind of want to be the first or the last because, and I'll say this, and songwriters listening can appreciate this. It may not be the career-defining song, but I'll be damned if love somebody hasn't outplayed everything. Yeah, I hear it, I hear it every week. And when you're the last song on an album, for whatever reason, radio stations, they will play it ad nauseum until the first single of the next album comes out. Right. So you kind of get this like free bandwidth, which is that that's my only story about that song about Love Somebody is that we got all this free bandwidth.

And I will say Max Martin helped us finish it and then refused to take publishing. He did the same thing with Dangerous Woman and where he came and he did all the vocal production and stuff like that and we went through a thing trying to figure out how to give him writing credit on it because he wouldn't take it. It was a really interesting situation because we can name four or five songs

that we've discussed on this podcast that he maybe wrote the hook or maybe wrote and didn't take publishing on it which is should teach a lot of our generation it kind of helped teach our generation versus the people who are maybe half a generation

or a generation older that would take any publishing of anything that they are even close to versus what he does which is sometimes you're the publisher or in his case in that album he's the executive producer so he's already getting it so he's already doing it and rather than

taking credit even when credits do sometimes it's like you know what I'm going to play publisher right now I'm going to play executive producer and I'm not going to go and do a money grab for the sake of money grab and I think it's important to note there are

and I'm not going to name names on this podcast but there are you know we hear it I hear on I'd say on a monthly basis of writers who are I find out are credited on hits that are out currently that I know and everybody that was in the room knows wasn't didn't do anything or sometimes a song will get passed around for

a few writers and the session you were in on it got erased and is no longer there but people will still make claim on a song which i personally if you can sleep at night doing that fine i've never done that i i won't tell you while the mics are on but when the mics are off i will tell you two hit records that i wrote the chorus or a huge part of that i have zero credit for um and one of them hurts me one of them will probably always hurt me. One of them won't. And we'll leave everybody guessing on that. The artist just simply forgot or didn't want to address it. And I've been blessed and lucky in life. And I truly believe that it will come back around or that it already has. And you can't make money grabs, but I will say Max on Love Somebody, the post choruses, the melody and the bridge,

which was for some reason a nightmare. And we know, like, nobody loves bridges right now. anyway. He hates bridges. That bridge exists and the postcourse exists on Love Somebody, which is probably has half a million spins at this point. And Max did it and with us, but he did it. And I was like, you know, Adam and I were like, Adam was like, yeah, man, I think he gets like 20%, like 20. And I was like, yeah, sure. So I texted him. Max, we're giving you 20. He said, absolutely not. No, I refuse. I'm not taking it. You're talking about love somebody. you're talking about we are who we are, we're talking about

what's the want to want me you know the the post of of Dangerous Woman he changed he's like I like this rhythm better and it was a better thing

Jay Cash told me what he did and we are who we are which makes the song yeah it makes a song I mean he makes some of these edits and it's just because he's you need to be being a finisher being a finisher is is supremely important.

There's a lot of guys that can get a lot of songs started. Understanding when a record is done is hypercritical. Totally. Okay, so welcome to New York, Taylor Swift, also a huge album.

But it really doesn't compare to counting stars, which I think is like, you know, maybe the last song that we that we'll talk about as like an individual single. Because

redefining, the two, things that matter for a writer is defining an artist or redefining an artist. Then there's all those songs in between. And as an artist to have the kind of longevity where you have the

intro and then to have the sort of redefining thing. I mean, as big of a song as you had in between, Good Life, all those things. County Stars is a different level. It's a different piece, yeah. Do you feel like you have to repeat

success now that you've had this long of the career. You'd be lying if you said you didn't. Of course I do. I, you know, the counting stars turning into what it did. And again, another song where I've had A&Rs and label people tell me it wasn't a hit and it shouldn't even be a single. So lesson number one is trust your gut.

If you're here, you're here for a reason. You have to trust your gut at the end of the day. Shut out the noise. Don't let too many cooks. in the kitchen because they will absolutely muddy the soup and it will just taste like, like horrible if you let too many people add spices to it. And accounting stars fell in danger of that. And finally, we took the reins after two singles. Also, never pick a single based on a campaign. If you have like Chevrolet wants to use your song for a thing in March and it's whatever,

if it doesn't fit your timeline and it's not exactly the song that you want to put out, do not align yourself with the campaign there will be others get the song right and then everybody will come knocking um counting stars was the third single the first two the thing about one republic's songs are weird are you know we have these every album has these career defining records but we still have all these other like other songs that connect you know like a this isn't and this isn't me propping us up or bragging this is just the the metrics that i deal with within one republic is unique because i understand what moves the needle for us globally and what doesn't. So like, you know, on our, on our most recent album, before I pulled the plug on it, which I pulled it right after we dropped it, because

that's a whole other topic that just you can find on the internet. Articles of me talking about almost having a nervous breakdown. But we put out a single call wherever I go. And we've done, I think it's triple platinum, right? Ever's, oh, that's amazing. Three times platinum. Three million in sales, that's amazing. When you've been around as long as we have a song, if a song doesn't go really crush, like globally connect, and this sounds like 1% of 1% problems, but for me to complain about, but it's true. Every time we release a single, I leave my family and my kids, all five of us do and we're gone forever. I was gone 240 days out of 2016 without touring. That's just promo everywhere in the world because once you break globally, you can't just do promo in Stockholm and

London. You've got to do Sydney. Well, that's the opposite part of the world. And then you're trying to also make money in that time. Oh, we picked up a private gig in Istanbul. We need to go to Istanbul. And when you release a song, it is such a commitment of your life. You trade time, which is the only thing you have with your family and friends. You're gone, man. You're just gone. Your relationships crumble. Things fall apart. So I take picking singles like so carefully now. And, you know, it helps to have streaming and all this stuff. Now you can kind of get gauges of stuff before you really pull the trigger. But counting stars was kind of our, okay this is how one republic singles work we put out feel again because it was with a campaign it did

okay if i lose myself wasn't doing great but then alesso did the remix and that did great yeah they did but we still hadn't had a like a true smash yet how we knew that counting stars was the song this is weird we were in Beirut we were playing we had just played teneasia and we were playing a festival um in rj festival in biblos leis Lebanon, which is the, Google this, everybody. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Cool. Yeah, it's kind of a cool fact. I ate goat for the first time. By the way, it tastes pretty good. So we're playing this festival. I remember standing on the edge of this deck, looking out over whatever the Mediterranean or whatever it is there, and look to the right and we're towards Syria.

ISIS is just popping off like literally that month. And it was just an interesting time. We had dropped two singles that had done okay it was like you know one republic style hits or whatever you want to call them and um i'm knowing that like i'm facing a whole tour going like counting stars is coming out if we don't you know if we don't connect this we're screwed we go on stage we perform our whole new pretty much our whole new album we get to counting stars halfway through the set this is in lebanon and i think there's like 7000 people there every single person screamed every lyric at the top of their lungs from the moment we started playing it to the end of the song. And I turned to Brent and said, that's our single. And we shoot the video in New Orleans on a shoestring budget, which is hilarious, considering

the views it ended up getting. It was like, it was the first time that we took the reins. So we're doing the video. I'm writing the treatment with the director. We're doing it in the city we want to do it. Nobody else stopped talking to us. We're putting this song out. And it represented, for the first time ever, counting stars, that song and that album represented what truly was the best use of my voice. And it tapped into the gospel thing that I'd grown up listening to and singing and the organic nature. We figured out how to sound like a band, but still be modern. And to this day, if you're in a band, that is a nightmare. I mean, I'm, you know, today I'll be working on new one republic stuff today. And we did like,

10 new songs the week before Christmas, 10 or 12 for a new album. And I finally have cleared my head and gotten over my fog of what 2016, 17 was. And I now feel like I know what that sounds like, what I want it to sound like. But I'll be damned if I didn't want the sound of that era, that the Adele era, the counting stars, that era that even Evichie wake me up, that kind of gospel soul folk thing. I loved that era so much. I was talking with the writer the other day about it. He was going, don't you wish that could have just kept going? Of course. Oh my God. For songwriters? For songwriters. It's like real songs. I mean, everybody listening was 2014, 15, not the best two years of like the last 10? Well, what's weird is those are the same years that you also had. Call me maybe and you'd also have Goatee.

Oh, somebody I used to know. Goateeathe. It's 2015, 16. You had like a whole range of like songs. You had fun really kind of came out around that time too, so you even had like alternative rock bands. Dude, it was incredible. That was my favorite time. Go to you used to know. You were talking about songs you wish you wrote.

That is in my top five songs I wish I wrote. Yeah, We Are Young was at the same time. Oh, it's phenomenal. We Are Young's phenomenal. That hurts me a little bit. Fun, guys, get back together. Come on. Okay, so we're going to go to a segment called,

I'm going to name five things and just say it's off the top of your head. first one round the feet your manager stable consistent smart relentless friend nozanne canella hilarious smart bizarre talented homie i mean you guys have done a lot of work together he was out a guest on this show also so uh shout out to him no Shout out to Noel. Noel's been my longest signed writer. He did good life. I walk in one day and I hear this beat and I go, who did that?

And Brent goes, Noel did. More or less, that's how the story went. And he was engineering for us in Denver and I immediately was like, dude, let's do a publishing situation. And so Noel's been with me for eight, nine years now. And he is one of my favorite human beings on Earth. I was with Noel and Brent when you guys had just shot the video. for a good life and you had emailed it or something we were at the village in L.A. And we played it there and I was like, oh, that's really cool.

And we were in the smallest room. It's just room that we wouldn't be in now. No, I rented a room because I had an artist. I told you I was handed a record label from Interscope kind of, it sounds weird, but forcibly. Jimmy was like, you're going to take, you're going to take this deal. I'm going to give you a label. You're going to take it because I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to walk out the fucking door.

going to go sign with somebody else and I'm going to have to kill you. So he gave me a record, gave me a record label and I had to sign an artist, truthfully, had to and found one with Brett. And she wanted to camp out at the village so that I locked out that room for like six months. And I never stepped foot in that room, by the way. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, Unicorn. Ambitious isn't a strong enough word. So unicorn, taller than you think. That's right. Smarter than you can imagine.

Effortless. Insatiable. Adele. Beautiful. The best. Effortless. Mother. Human.

Genevieve. Your wife. Just in case you need it. I was like, just in case. Okay, yeah, of all the Genevies in the world. Beautiful, friend, the best. smells amazing forever

what's advice you'd give to up-and-coming writers well if we haven't put too fine a point on it move to where other writers live I would recommend London Toronto L.A and you know obviously if you're in

Canberra or Perth maybe get to Sydney you know yeah right advice I would say be very cautious to chase what you hear out there now ever because by the time you have mimicked that perfectly the world has moved on from that anyway and as cheesy and as trite as it sounds the weird amalgamation of influences and music and life experiences and hate and love and loss that you've experienced in your lifetime makes you the most unique human being on earth, period. Because that is what the world

hasn't heard yet. They haven't heard your soup, your combination of all these experiences and all the music you've taken in, however weird and abstract it may be. And so to water that down or brand that with somebody else's brand is a disservice. And if you're, If you have any shot in the world, the only shot you have is being the absolute most dialed version of yourself. And I would also say this, I walk into every room ever, any studio or meeting, assuming that the person sitting across the way for me or that's in there with me, the artist in there with me, might be more talented than me. So the only thing, and I realize that early on, I operate under that assumption that everybody's more talented. whether they are or they aren't is immaterial. Operate under that assumption.

The only thing you can control if you can't control God-given ability or talent is the time you put in. And so if you put in more time, but Kobe is more talented and still is there before people get there and he stayed until people after people left shooting free throws.

So bottom line is if you out work, everybody, all things being equal, you're going to win. Yeah. You stick it out, And the other thing I would say, don't surround yourself with yes people. Be your own worst critic. One of Luke's best qualities was he was the single most self-critical person like in the studio

and blunt as hell and would tell you you suck and the song sucks and the idea sucks. Like be critical of yourself so the world doesn't have to be. When you put your stuff up on SoundCloud or not SoundCloud anymore but Spotify or, you know, whatever, it behooves you to be your own worst critic because otherwise people are going to tear it apart anyway. Sure. I think some of that's like taste too. It's like you want when people send music to me it's like well would you take this song and post it all of your social media and say this is mine

and I usually mean that when it's somebody else who's like hey will you listen to my cousin's music or my friend's music? It's like is this great? Yes. Is it great? Is it great? Is this something that you would compare to Oasis? Do you think this is as good as Wonderwall? If you think it's as good as Wonderwall, I'll listen to it. The difference between good and great is the Grand Canyon. And it seems like it might be just a couple words or lines. You know, I have a song right now that is Wonder Republic that we have a phenomenal chorus, like 10 out of 10, smash chorus. And I've been icing the verse for four months, not four months, four weeks, because I

know the verse isn't right. It's driving me insane. And I've had people, I've had voices tell me it's good, it's good to go. Mix it, let's go. And I am the only solitary voice in my soul knows it will come out and it will be, yeah, and this sounds again like me like boo-hooing. But yeah, we'll get, my worst case scenario with One Republic when we're going to put out new music is you drop something and you get 200 million streams. It's like, oh, it's successful. No, it's not. Like, You have to set a higher standard, a higher bar. You know, you have to, every single album, every song is your first song. It's your first album, every single time.

And if you don't treat it like that, then it's just a matter of time before, you know, nobody's calling. I mean, that's the truth. And it's, in terms of like being self-critical, Shiren is a good guy to use an example. You know, Ed and I've done a number of songs together, one of which, made this most recent album and is coming. But he'll do on average six songs a day. When you do a session with him, I went to his place in the UK or L.A., New York, wherever he is,

you'll tear through five to six ideas. And I swear to God, we will shoot down, hit records left and right in the room. And you'll be staring at him like incredulously. Just like, how are we walking away from this idea? And this feels massive. And he'll be like, yeah, but it's not my brand of massive. Or like, yeah, but I think it's good.

I think it's really, really good. I don't think it's great. And he has that innate sense of, if it doesn't have the chance of being in number one, then why are we even wasting time on it? First of all, thank you for doing this. Dude, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming.

Yeah, exactly. for being here. We've obviously known each other now for a long time. We've gone to friends' weddings together. This is years ago. But I think it was something you said early on. You said, you know, compare and despair. Remember you saying that somewhere.

Yeah. And, you know, when you're friends with somebody who is far exceeding expectations of your group, of our generation, you know, it's like, here we are all in bands together. And, you know, you're in a band. And if you look, Ricky Reeve was in a band the same time. And so is Evigan.

So as Sean Douglas. So are like all these, a lot of songwriters who are like all in the same sort of like the same situation. And then you see. Yeah. And you see somebody get so successful and develop their brand. And you end up becoming such a brand that you're on the cover of Billboard magazine. You write with all these people.

You get Grammy nominations. You do all these things. And in that thing of like, do you, how do you stay yourself? And it helps when you have a friend who throughout their career stays themselves. Because you're like, oh, yeah. Well, no, I mean, work for Ryan. It'll work for all of us. Let's just stay ourselves.

And we all have ended up with this some sort of moment, partly because we had friends that led the way in being themselves. Yes. And so, you know, I always looked up to you and to Evan because you guys were like, hey, you can do this. Your verses are really contemporary in these courses. And I didn't know before you guys saying, like, you should do this. Yeah.

So thank you for changing my life, man. You know, I was just racking my brain to think where I was. And I actually think that the moment I said that, I would think I was at your apartment. is either yours or brets because i remember sitting i remember there's a staircase in the middle that went up to the second level of this apartment complex oh that was brett's because we're brettes yeah we were in a part oh no birthday party he was passed out he was passed out we drew dicks on him we drew dicks on his face yeah oh man that was amazing brett if you're listening yeah you're welcome yeah um yeah he was so passed out yeah that was his birthday yeah um and uh yeah i remember that very well

but I think that was the time that you were trying to maybe. It might have been sooner than that. But regardless, dude, I was so happy. I'll never forget, like, it was the first, I want to see, it was like four years ago, four years ago, five years ago. You had like the first non-glacier hiking, non-whatever, you had your outside big hit.

And I remember, I didn't know you had written it, Luffman told me. And I was like, yeah, I really liked this song. and he's like, yeah, it's like, you know, you know Ross? And I go, yeah, and he goes, Ross wrote this. And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, Ross Golan? He was like, yeah, Ross Golan. I was like, what?

What the hell? And then I remember going online and like pulling your name up and talking with Evan. And he's like, yo, he just went from like zero to like 90 just in the last six months. So congrats to you, man. I think it's phenomenal. And like, you know, there's the other thing, too, is it's a small world. in songwriting. And so you know when people contribute

and people are a good vibe. And I can say that like, and this is something that you would never know unless I told you, but like within the writer community in L.A., like everybody loves you. Everybody that ever writes with you is like, oh my God, he's one of my favorite people to write with. And I just want to tell you that because it's like,

there's a lot of people that people don't say that about. Yeah, that's a rare commodity. That's a rare commodity. Thank you. Yeah, I want to draw dicks on your face. the next chance I get. Dude, on that note, thank you. And here we go.

Next one Republic album. One Republic album. Here we go. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out

our Spotify playlist or visit our website at and The Writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us on iTunes. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silverstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. On next episode, we sit down with Buzzbee. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.