And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Key Moment: Ryan Tedder | How to Be Irreplaceable

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

What does it really take to become irreplaceable in music?This is more than a lesson in music. It’s a masterclass in how to make yourself essential in any room you enter.In this episode, Ryan Tedder shares a raw, unfiltered blueprint for building a career that stands the test of time.From mastering guitar, piano, and production to writing two songs a day, Ryan unpacks why versatility, humility, and relentless work ethic are the hidden currencies of longevity. He breaks down the mindset shifts that separate fleeting success from lasting impact, and why assuming everyone is more talented than you might just be your greatest advantage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm saying this to everyone. When I say get better, what I mean is this, if you genuinely do not have the top line bone in your body, lyric and melody is not happening for you. That's fine. Become better at production outside of just doing drums. The only way you can sustain a career become irreplaceable, right?

Absolutely irreplaceable. If you were a topliner, learn guitar, learn piano. If you're just lyric and melody and you hang out, learn guitar, learn piano. That added value, you get thrown out of the room in Nashville. If you just walk in, you're like, yeah, I just do lyrics. You better be Bernie motherfucking Toppin if you just do lyrics.

It's like, oh, you're Bernie Toppin. You can hang. Like, otherwise get out of the room. When I spent the two years I spent with Timberland, I realized quickly, and the reason I started a band is in that same time I was with Timberlake hanging out, and John Mayer was blowing up. He'd already blown up. And I realized, and Tim and I talked about it. I was like, I think I might start a band.

and he's like, I signed you as a solo artist. Why are you thinking of band? And I said, okay, I'm never going to, I will not be more famous than Timberlake, any, ever. I cannot out dance him and I'm not going to out pop him. I cannot outplay guitar. I cannot outplay John Mayer. If you're an artist, find the one or two things that you can do better than anybody and lean into that.

For Tate, it was dancing and honestly work ethic. You know, for Ed Sharon, it's the good fact that the good, guitar is so indelible with him. He plays it everywhere. And it's always with him. You can picture it. But not only that, he writes three to five songs a day. His work ethic isn't. There's a theme here. Work ethic, right? If you're a Keys guy or a vibe guy, and that's just what you do, learn drums, learn to drum program, learn to do other things, become really, really good at it, be additive, add all those things in because for me, when I realized I was never going to out, drum, outproduced Timbaland, right? Very sobering experience. I'm hanging out. I'm like going,

this guy, I'm watching him make Cry Me a River in the room. And I'm just going, my eyes are crossing and I'm like, oh man, I suck. I need to get so much better. And I'm never going to be, I'm not going to create a sound that signature ever. And I was in the era of producers creating signature sounds. And what occurred to me was, I'll never be that good to create a sound that I think shifts the universe

on its access, but what if I became a Swiss Army knife? What if I could kind of mold into any writing room ever and just do whatever fills the gaps like to your point about the guitar thing? So like getting just good enough on guitar, piano bass, drum programming,

lyric melody. So yesterday I'm in a session with TZo and a handful of other people. And he's asking me, you know, I have Picard asking me, like, what do you want to do today? Do you want to steer? Which steering means you're the one producing and doing the track for those of you. You don't know. And or, you know, what do you want to do?

And I said, I want to let you be you. And like, you just like in your zone crushing as Picard, great French producer. and I said, I will chime in on this and be sending you sounds. I will be doing top line with Tizo. I will probably do the hook and let Tizo body the verses. Diplo and I are going to go back and forth on sound selection. And that was my role yesterday. It was just like pivoting from one to the other, you know, coming up with samples that we use to a flip, you know, yada, yada, yada.

And I remember thinking yesterday, knowing I was doing the podcast today, I was like, Like, yesterday was like the one of the more like perfect embodiments of what I set out to do 20 years ago. Because like if I was just the producer like guy who didn't do lyric and top line, well, you've got Picard to the Picard brothers. You got Diplo in the room. Like there's three of us doing the same thing. Tizo, who's phenomenal and what a great guy and great with rap and melody and a bunch of stuff. But like needs a big hook, right? and Wes Diplo's not going to do that.

Picard's not going to do that. So to the degree that you can try to be the most Swiss Army knife as possible, you will have a job the rest of your life in music if you so want. You have to believe in yourself to be really successful. Everyone I've met that's exceedingly successful believes in themselves to a point of absurdity. Assume that everyone is more talented than you. I said this the other night when we were having that dinner. when I'm in any room, you know, when I got to L.A., when I got my record deal, when I got to Nashville and all the other places I lived, I operated under the assumption that everyone was potentially more talented than I was. And so then it occurred to me, the, when I was in middle school and high school, the only way I went from eighth place to first place in basketball, in MVP, it was whatever the hours were that everyone was putting in, I doubled them.

and the work ethic component is the life-changer period. Why doesn't one republic have the same fate as other bands that have come and gone during your tenure? There aren't any other bands that has where one member of the band, and I'm not just saying the lead singer, where a member of the band is consistently perpetually writing like modern, competitive records for other artists and staying in the zeitgeist. And for me, all the production I do and all the songs that I write, I do two songs a day, pretty much five days a week, which sounds crazy in L.A., kind of in L.A., that sounds a little crazy. Go to Nashville, man. That's what they do. They do two to three. It's fine. The best thing that could happen, the secret to success

for any artist is getting dropped once. Dude, no one in the music industry sits you It's not like the record label goes, oh, by the way, here's your personal financial advisor that we're assigning you so that you don't go tits up five years from now and spiral off earth and depression because you spent everything you made.