One Republic ft Timbaland - Apologize

You could say that Ryan Tedder was taught to reach for his goals from a very young age. Knowing his favorite treat was candy corn, his musician father placed a bowl of it on top of the family's grand piano. "He'd use it as bait," Tedder says. "The only way I could get at that candy corn was to practice. Then he'd put it within reach. I was three."

His father's tactics worked. Though he no longer works for candy, Tedder's passion for music was ignited in his childhood and soon blossomed into full-fledged obsession. By age 13, Tedder realized that he needed to express himself through his own songs and become an artist. His supple tenor, crystalline melodies, and emotionally charged lyrics reflect the blood and sweat of a young man who has devoted his life to learning and developing his craft as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Hence the intensely affecting music he has written for his Los Angeles-based band, OneRepublic.

“The songs touch on things like despair, lack of hope, and frustration,” Tedder says. “They have to do with my own journey; they're about times when I've felt stuck—that I'll never achieve my goals. But ultimately, in the songs, I resolve it by seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and realizing that no matter how bad things get, there's always a way out.”

It's that optimism and cathartic quality that propels such songs as “Stop and Stare.” The lyrics have shades of melancholy, but there is a tangible emotional undercurrent running through them. “To me, that is the most important thing,” Tedder says. “If you can't tap into emotion, then you're just selling catchy tunes.”

The enormous wellspring of emotion this 25-year-old Midwesterner taps into when he writes is partly due to his background. Tedder was raised in a devoutly religious extended family of missionaries and pastors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “My mom didn't know anything about non-secular music,” Tedder says. “To this day, if I told her I was working with Prince, she'd think I was referring to my old dog.” The only non-Christian music he was exposed to as a kid was the Beach Boys. “I loved that they weren't gospel,” he says. “And their melodies and harmonies were just so tight.”

Having learned to play piano at age 3 through the Suzuki method, in which very young children play by ear rather than reading notes, Tedder taught himself to sing at age 12 by listening to his favorite records and trying to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, U2's Bono, and Sting until he could sing every note. “I sang for two hours a day every day of my life until I was 18,” Tedder says. Along the way, he picked up guitar, drums, bass, and clarinet.

Encouraged by his father, a pianist and songwriter who had received publishing offers but chose not to go the musical route, Tedder took losing his college scholarship his sophomore year (“because I kept skipping classes to write songs”) as a sign that he was meant to pursue his music professionally. He bounced around the Midwest for several years waiting tables to support himself until a brief stint working at a Pottery Barn warehouse became the last straw: “No more non-music-related jobs,” he says. Instead he fast-talked his way into an internship at DreamWorks Records' Nashville office and sold his car to buy recording equipment. “I didn't want to give myself a Plan B,” he says.

Desperate for money, Tedder began to produce demos for songwriters and labels, charging $300 to $400 a track. He hopped from production deal to deal, eventually hooking up with hip-hop producer Timbaland at one point and writing tracks for Southern rapper Bubba Sparxxx. Soon Tedder found himself at a crossroads. “I was offered two publishing deals within two months of being in Nashville,” he says. “I could have just written songs and lived a carefree life, but I knew that I had to be an artist. I wanted to form a rock band and create my own sound.”

Enter OneRepublic, which he formed in Colorado in 2004 with bassist Tim Meyers, guitarist Zach Filkins, guitarist Drew Brown, and drummer Eddie Fischer. The band are currently in the studio working on OneRepublic's debut album, which will be released by Columbia Records in 2006.

Tedder describes the music they are working on as being heavily influenced by the Beatles for the songwriting craft and melodic inventiveness, and U2 for the uplifting vocal delivery and emotional undercurrents. Throughout songs like “Apologize,” “All We Are,” and “Mercy,” Tedder aspires to move his listeners the way Bono does onstage. “You go to a U2 concert and it's like church,” he says. “I want to make people feel like that. I don't want someone to say, ‘Oh, he has a nice voice.' I want that person to walk away and feel like he or she has had a religious experience.”