AMERICAN pop rock band One Republic was supposed to have a new album out in November 2019.
Sifting through two years of material to curate a set of worthy songs, the group pushed back the fifth album to a May 2020 release.
Although the Covid-19 outbreak derailed it even further, it was recently announced that the full-length studio release, titled Human, is set to drop on Aug 27.
Love, fear and hope. Those were the three words to succinctly describe the new album, according to the band's frontman, Ryan Tedder.
During a recent online interview, the 42-year-old singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer said that the group was returning to its older sound.
"Our previous album Oh My My (from 2016), which I like, was very musically adventurous and experimental.
"With Human, we were going back to the sound of the first three albums (Dreaming Out Loud, Waking Up and Native). I'd best describe the new songs as really emotional and heartfelt," he said.
Known for hit singles such as Apologize, Stop And Stare, Good Life, Counting Stars and Love Runs Out, the band from Colorado is completed by guitarists Zach Filkins and Drew Brown, bassist and cellist Brent Kutzle, drummer Eddie Fisher and keyboardist Brian Willett.
The group has released several singles from Human, namely Rescue Me, Wanted, Didn't I and Better Days, with Run being the most recent.
STAYING FOCUSED
"Run is an aspirational and inspirational song. The purpose of this band is to, through music, make our fans feel inspired and have a sense of connection and emotion that they strive for something better for their life and families.
"I try to do that in a way that isn't cheesy or too obvious. The lyrics are specific to this band and it's mostly me thinking about life and living in this world," he said.
When asked about what the world needs now, he said: "Empathy and kindness are the two most valuable assets in the world. I don't think we all have to be Mother Teresa, but if everyone just dialled those up a bit, the world would be a better place."
Talking more about Run, Tedder explained that it came from his love for running.
"I love exercising and I run 10km a day. I'm also a person who is curious and excited about a lot of things in life.
"So the song is about chasing your dreams and grabbing life by the horns and owning it.
"Another thing about running is that when you're focused and going after something, you're not distracted by so much of the negative things in life.
"All that stuff just goes by you, just put up horse blinders, don't worry about all that stupid stuff and just run," he said.
Tedder has been running into a long career of success no doubt. The seasoned producer has worked on some of the most commercially successful songs, including Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love and Beyonce's Halo, which made the list of bestselling singles of all time.
Dubbed by Billboard as "The Undercover King of Pop", he is a three-time winner of the Grammy Award for Album of the Year due to his production credits on Adele's 21and 25, as well as Taylor Swift's 1989.
Although the pandemic had put the brakes on One Republic, Tedder was still busy as ever working on a long string of other projects for artistes such as Lady Gaga, BlackPink, Miley Cyrus, Jessie J and The Jonas Brothers.
A NEW CHAPTER
Tedder admitted that the long gestation of Human was also caused by a near burnout that he had experienced due to rigorous touring.
"I was completely fried and didn't have anything left in me. I loved what I was doing but I had been going for a decade from 2007 to 2017 nonstop.
"In the past five years, we did another tour in America and later, two in Asia," said Tedder, who was falling ill and missing his family.
He started writing in 2019 again and his work with other artistes started to re-energise his creative juices.
"That got me back in the saddle. Every time I was with an artiste, they would ask me what I was doing with One Republic, which was very encouraging.
"I had also come off being at home with my family and had enough time of not touring so that I had something to say to go back out there again.
"I always thought this was a 20-year band from day one I told the band in 2019 that I've got another 10 years in me. Then Covid-19 hit and gobbled up 18 months so this represents the second chapter and I'm excited to start it with this album, Human," he said.
Tedder who started taking piano lessons when he was 3, said that he fell in love with the instrument by the time he was 13.
A self-taught singer, he also learnt to play the guitar and drums and by the age of 15, he was already writing his own songs.
When asked about what would be the most important thing to learn about songwriting, he said: "Nobody starts out as a great songwriter."
"Only some people are gifted early on with melody or lyric, naturally a poet or good with words.
"I was a big reader growing up so my vocabulary was naturally bigger when I started writing songs.
"I had already learnt so many hit songs so I kind of knew how they sounded. So I was really good at imitating what I thought sounded like something I would want to hear on the radio.
"Just put in the time and don't be too hard on yourself when you start because you will be terrible.
"But you'll get better and then one day, you write something amazing that impresses everybody," he said.
