-Our next guest is a three-time Grammy winner,
a very prolific songwriter, and the lead singer of OneRepublic.
Their new album, "Human," is available right now,
like, as of right now.
Yeah. It's out. [ Cheers and applause ]
Please welcome Ryan Tedder!
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ Ryan Tedder ♪
♪ Don't wanna hear your lies ♪
♪ That's why he tells you ♪
♪ It's too late to apologize ♪
♪ Rumor has it ♪
♪ He ain't got time for fun ♪
♪ In his halo by the songs for everyone ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
-Come on. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Feel the love right there for Ryan Tedder.
Come on. How great does that feel?
-Alright. -Welcome, buddy.
Thanks so much for coming back to our show.
We appreciate it. And how exciting.
You're here on the actual launch of your new album.
-Yes, yes, yes. -It is out right now.
-Now. -"Human."
OneRepublic "Human" is out now.
Are you nervous? Are you excited?
-Normally, I would be nervous in a normal album release.
It's been like four or five years.
But with streaming in the last four or five years, like,
I was super-nervous a few days ago
and I was calling our management.
I'm like, "We're going to watch the first week.
How is it going to do?" This, that, and the other.
He's like, "You've already sold
like a million and a half copies.
We already know it's doing well.
Calm down." So I'm -- -Really?
-I still want people --
Yeah, I just found this out two days ago.
Because it's streaming, so people --
Apparently, there's this thing called streaming.
Spotify -- So, anyway, but because people
have been listening to the songs we've released
leading up to this for so long --
And we bumped the album because of COVID.
So we just kind of benefited from the time
that we've had to make more music
and people to check out the stuff we already have out.
-That's fantastic.
I appreciate you coming in and performing tonight.
You're doing your first ticketed concert in Las Vegas.
-Las Vegas, yeah. -When is that? Soon.
That's -- -September 4th and 5th.
If you want to come to Vegas, it's a good time, and we --
I'm extremely excited about it.
I'm also nervous about it, because it's been like
two years at this point, and the concert --
You know, the live music and theater,
everything has just been kind of drilled by the pandemic.
So, yeah, I don't really get nervous anymore,
but I'm a little nervous about those shows.
-Oh, just being rusty. -Yeah, I'm rusty.
-Like, do you have, like, tricks that you used to do,
like, "Oh, I used to do this" or "I used to do that"
-Exactly. Yeah.
And I have to do four or five new songs,
and it's just -- It's weird.
It's kind of like, you know, if you're a runner
and you run all the time and then you don't run for two years
and you go, "Now I'm going to do a marathon."
That's kind of what it feels like.
-Wow, interesting. -Yeah.
-And you have so many songs, do you forget the lyrics?
-I do forget the lyrics.
Everybody forgets the lyrics all the time, just FYI.
But I -- There's at least two or three songs,
and if you ever -- So, if you're at a concert
and the artist, halfway through one of their
back-catalog records just goes like that
and holds the mic out to the audience to sing,
that means they don't -- they forgot the lyrics.
You need to sing this. So now you know.
-Like, Billy Joel. ♪ It's 9:00... ♪
-Yeah, yeah, exactly. ♪ Sing me a song...♪
-Yeah, you just do it for me.
Yeah, exactly. -Yeah, yeah.
-But when you do what you do -- Obviously, congrats.
The band is fantastic and successful and giant,
but then you also write songs for other people.
-Yeah.
-And I was just talking earlier
that you wrote "Halo" for Beyoncé.
-Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Is that -- -Thank you.
-Like, I think -- I just read about that
'cause it reached a billion streams or something.
-Yeah, I found that out last week. First --
-A billion streams.
-A billion streams, which is -- It's --
You know, now it's her "biggest hit"
or whatever of -- I guess for whenever, since she came out.
-Bigger than "Single Ladies"?
-I think -- I don't know how to calibrate that.
I think so. I don't know. I just know it's the first.
I went on her Spotify, 'cause I didn't know this.
I don't track Beyoncé's Spotify.
I went on her Spotify last week.
Someone texted me and said, "Congrats, bro."
And I was like, "On what?" They said, "Beyoncé, Spotify."
I didn't know it was -- So I went on her page
and I was like, "Oh!
Oh, my God." I literally had no idea.
-Is it easy -- Does it just come to you as a writer?
Do you get in a room with the artist and go,
"Alright, let's make a song" or...
-Yeah, I mean, "Halo" was an example of
I had like three hours.
I was injured, so I wasn't touring
and I had three hours to write a song.
-What happened to you?
-I blew out my Achilles' heel,
which is, by the way, don't do it.
-Okay.
-Like, yeah, it's not as awesome as it appears to be.
So I blew out my Achilles.
I got grounded for probably three or four months.
I couldn't tour.
I had a three-hour gap in the middle of the day.
My wife was gone.
I called a friend and I said, "Hey, get over here.
Beyoncé wants me to write a song.
Let's do it together."
He had written a big number 1 for Rihanna.
And I turned the keyboard on.
And I wish every session went like this, but they don't.
The first sound that happened to play on the keyboard
was the opening sound of the song, the...
♪ Ahhhh ♪
Yeah.
-Like, so it sounded like angels.
And I was like, "Why don't we do a song, like, about angels?
Like, her guardian angel.
Like, Jay-Z is her guardian angel."
And then, two minutes later, it evolved into, "Ooh, 'Halo.'
That's such a cool title. Let's go with 'Halo.'"
Three hours later, the song was done,
and then like 12 months later,
the song came out, and it was that simple.
-That's unbelievable. -Yeah.
You have a -- [ Cheers and applause ]
You have a gift. -Yeah.
It's not always that easy.
Some songs, like "Counting Stars,"
I had the chorus.
I worked on the chorus for five months
and I did the verse in 30 minutes.
So you just don't -- You know, Lil Nas X song
that he just teased today coming,
and it was one afternoon and it was just three or four of us
hanging around, jumping around the room
like idiots back in like April or May.
And next thing I know, it's like,
"Hey, it's in a Taco Bell commercial tomorrow,
and it's coming."
And so you just never know how --
There's no science to it.
-Yeah, but you have a gift, though.
You have something, because your songs get into my brain.
-That's my goal. That's the goal.
-And they just swim in my head, and then I go,
"I can't --"
I have to listen to one of your other songs
to get the other song out of my head.
-Yeah. I'm the spider that crawls in your ear at night
and plants eggs and then just -- That's the disgusting analogy,
but that's what I'm trying to do.
The earworm, the earworm. -The earworm.
-Yeah, yeah. -It's fantastic.
It really is some magic to it.
And thanks for -- You're performing "Someday"
on our show tonight.
Thank you guys for doing that. -Thanks for having me.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Congrats.
The album is officially out right now.
-Yes. -"Human."