Meet the members of OneRepublic: Ryan Tedder (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Zach Filkins (guitar, backing vocals), Drew Brown (guitar), Brent Kutzle (bass, cello) and Eddie Fisher (drums).
"You're only as good as your worst song," says OneRepublic's songwriter Ryan. Not that he knows anything about writing a bad song. The 30-year-old born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has obsessed with pop music for more than 10 years. He's worked with Rihanna, Beyoncé, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Lopez and other huge stars. "The writing approach I take for OneRepublic is completely different from the approach I take with anyone else – it's infinitely harder," Ryan says. "These songs have to be personalized. And I write each of them like it's the last one I'll be able to put out."
It works. OneRepublic was nominated for a Grammy in 2008 for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. And Ryan, plus guitarists Zach and Drew, bassist/cellist Brent and drummer Eddie have sold almost 2 million albums and 8 million singles!
The band's 2007 hit Apologize from the album Dreaming Out Loud went to No. 1 in 16 countries, going gold in 14 of them. It broke records for airplay when it finally made it to radio. Their second single Stop And Stare took OneRepublic beyond platinum status. Waking Up is their second album, containing latest single All The Right Moves.
But OneRepublic wasn’t an overnight success. Zach learned guitar at 7 while living with his parents in Barcelona, Spain. Ryan learned vocals from the Beach Boys; he sang secretly at first, to himself in his room or with his Walkman on. And some of the most satisfying pop tunes he heard as a kid were those on the soundtracks of the '80s movies he watched over and over.
Ryan and Zach met in their senior year in high school. They formed a band called This Beautiful Mess and played one talent show but broke up after a week. Then, between his junior and senior years at college, Ryan won an MTV songwriting contest and got a record deal but walked away from an opportunity to write bubblegum pop at the height of the boy band craze - he wanted something deeper and felt he had more to learn. So at 19 he moved to Nashville and landed his first regular paying gig recording demos. At about that time, Timbaland, who'd seen Ryan on MTV, offered him a production deal and a chance to work together in Miami.
After high school Zach studied aerospace engineering at college but saw his grades slip as his passion for guitar-playing grew. By 2003, he moved to Colorado to study music and engineering. Ryan moved back to Colorado, too, after studying what he calls Producer 101 with Timbaland in Miami. Then the friends moved to L.A. to start OneRepublic with the rest of the boys.
At first the band played mostly small club shows that didn't always work for their huge sound. But then Timbaland's remix of Apologize broke on the radio and the super-producer signed OneRepublic to his label. Now the band spends all their time performing. They’ve been on the road for the last year and half, playing sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York, the massive New Pop festival in Germany and the V Fest in the U.K..
