Ryan Tedder is running out of fucks to give—but not songs. That’s probably why OneRepublic’s Artificial Paradise feels like the product of a beautiful existential spreadsheet, rather than one cohesive recording session. “It’s the longest pregnancy of all time,” Tedder says. “Our second single was ‘I Ain’t Worried’—from Top Gun: Maverick. And the first single, ‘West Coast,’ came out like 28 months ago.”
By his count, this album isn’t just an album. It’s a mixtape, an era, a relic of what Tedder calls the “end of the album cycle.” While most artists either surprise drop an LP (hi, Taylor) or churn out singles like TikToks, OneRepublic decided to go both ways. “We made 10 completely new songs for Artificial Paradise, and then just stacked all the dance collabs and movie tracks at the end like a remix EP.”
That’s not shade—just structure. “I had to call it what it was,” he says. “Those last few songs weren’t written for the album. Why pretend?” This is the same guy who remixed his own tracklist 48 hours before deadline, sending his bass player into what was probably a medically verifiable panic.
Tedder speaks like a man who’s lived eight lifetimes in the studio, and he has. That’s probably why songs like “Last Holiday” hit different. Written in 2016 while Tedder was spiraling from burnout, absentee guilt, and what he calls “an infinite sadness,” the lyrics are a time capsule from his lowest moment. “I stopped sleeping, serotonin crashed, depression set in,” he says. “I didn’t know what to call it at the time, but I hated everything to do with that year. I couldn’t even listen to the songs from that album.”
It took him nearly a decade to revisit “Last Holiday” without flinching. “Now I can look back on it and go, okay… everything that goes up must come down. Then you figure out how to get back up.”
He’s not kidding about that come-down. OneRepublic’s Native tour was so long, someone at Live Nation told him it was the fourth longest tour in history. “Which is only cool if you’re not married with two kids,” he deadpans. “If your kid is six, you just missed a third of their life.”
And yet somehow, he still finds time to overthink his lyrics. Case in point: the Reddit debate about “I Ain’t Worried” and the line “1999 heroes.” The fan theories flew fast—Prince homage? Random nostalgia? Gibberish that sounded cool?
Turns out, it was mathematical. “I calculated the average age of a Top Gun pilot and when the movie would drop. They’d be born in 1999,” Tedder says. “If it made more sense, I’d have changed it to 1989. I just needed it to mean something. I can’t write gibberish. That’s my curse.”
Tedder can tell you stories all day. About how Bleeding Love was just him trying to rip off Prince. About singing on a Paul Oakenfold album in 2006. About his friendship with every major DJ alive and his cautious approach to not becoming “the guy who just does dance music.” (He’s still going to make a robot concept album though. 2027. Mark it.)
But now, after years of leaning into feel-good, sun-drenched, post-COVID euphoria, Tedder’s heading back into the deep end. “I want to go into that emotive bag again. I’ve hit max sunshine. It’s time.”
He’s also quietly plotting a solo project that sounds nothing like OneRepublic. “I know, collective eye-roll, right? Great—another frontman going solo,” he jokes. “But this isn’t that. I needed a new outlet. Something that doesn’t come with a contract to fans.”
Because ultimately, that’s what haunts him. The contract. “You form a relationship with fans. You start with personal songs, you gotta end with them. Bono told me, ‘How many ways can you sing about love?’ And it’s true. But if you start by singing about yourself, that’s the deal. They expect more songs… about you.”
Until then, Ryan Tedder’s still riding the line between gratitude and collapse. “I’m standing on a rooftop in Vienna having a cigar, thinking, I get to do this for a living. That’s insane. I’d be a travel vlogger or a digital nomad if I wasn’t doing music,” he laughs. “But I get to do both. I get to sing about myself in beautiful places.”
And honestly, that sounds like the most Ryan Tedder sentence of all time.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
