OneRepublic leader Ryan Tedder is one of the most successful songwriters ever; He was one of 2021’s highest-paid musicians thanks to a massive sale of his catalog rights. He has quite the catalog, too, as he has co-written songs like Beyoncé’s “Halo,” Adele’s “Rumour Has It,” and Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love.” Beyond that, he’s also worked with Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, Jonas Brothers, Blackpink, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Machine Gun Kelly, Ed Sheeran, One Direction, and the list continues.
Of course, there’s also OneRepublic hits like “Apologize,” “Counting Stars,” and “Good Life.” Their latest single, “I Ain’t Worried,” is also a big success: It’s No. 7 on the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart and the band’s first top-10 song since 2013’s “Counting Stars.”
Through it all, though, Tedder says there’s one collaborative session that’s the most personally notable: Working with Paul McCartney (he co-wrote McCartney’s 2018 Egypt Station single “Fuh You“).
OneRepublic was on The Late Late Show yesterday (October 5) to perform “I Ain’t Worried,” and while there, Tedder had a brief chat with James Corden. The host asked if there was a recording session from his career that was the most “fun,” “memorable,” or “meaningful,” and Tedder answered:
“I’ve had some crazy moments with icons that I’ve worshipped my [whole] life, like U2, Peter Gabriel… they were incredible. The one that stands out the most, though, is Paul McCartney. I spent a week with him in the UK at his studio, with all the instruments from every Beatles album. He has all of them, he has all of them.
So if you say to Paul, ‘You know what I really loved? ‘Eleanor Rigby.” And he’ll go, ‘Oh, do you know what? The story about that…’ and he goes in, he tells me, ‘These are the original chords, it wasn’t ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ it was a different name.’ ‘Let It Be,’ he tells me how he wrote that. I went into ‘Hey Jude,’ he tells me how he wrote that. It was amazing.”
Check out the interview above and OneRepublic’s performance below.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.