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Ryan Tedder Reveals Why Artists Aren’t Releasing Music Right Now

Singer/songwriter, Ryan Tedder joins Elvis Duran and the Morning Show Friday to talk all about what he has been working on amid the pandemic as well as his new song Lose Somebody with Kygo and the future songs.

Tedder has converted his car to a recording studio in Los Angeles, spending most of his time Zooming with artists and other song writers around the world making music. "Now all my song writing sessions are zoomed. I have a Zoom session with Julia Michaels today," Tedder continues, "Now it's been normalized." He says no one will think twice when a song writer wants to join in on a session. "It's been weirdly productive."

Kygo explains where he was before the Zoom writing sessions began, including how he was exposed to COVID-19. Right before the pandemic started Tedder says One Republic was on what they call a 'set-up tour.' "Once u get to a point where u can sell out arenas, you have a new album coming, artists do something called an underplay tour where you play small theaters." They were currently traveling over Europe, playing small theaters while also working on their new studio album (release date postponed). The band was in Dubai then Paris, "we saw the COVID cloud moving across Europe." Tedder says they were heading to Italy when the border shut down. Turns out when they were recording in London, before coming back to the U.S. Tedder found out someone in the recording room with him tested positive for COVID. When he found this out he immediately got tested only to find out he was negative. "At this point (in the pandemic) I know about 20 people who have had it and 3 of them have died."

One Republic released a song at the very beginning of the pandemic, but quickly decided to postpone the release of their album (the first one they have put out in 4 years). Tedder explains there is no point in putting out a piece of work like that, "unless you are the size of Taylor Swift." He explains how "you're fighting against the news cycle," explaining that all anyone wanted to talk about, especially at the beginning of the pandemic was COVID-19 or Donald Trump.

"Charts are really weird right now," Tedder says to Elvis, "There's a lot of new artists that no one has ever heard of that have crashed music streaming services," referencing TikTok artists blowing up on social media. He continues, "Thankfully this Kygo record has legs and is connecting. I had 6 singles coming out with 6 different artists that are very well known, every single one of them got pulled or delayed indefinitely." He says radio stations like Z100 will have to change its name to Top 80 and play no commercials as a result of what music is to come in the next year or so.

You can listen to Ryan Tedder's full interview with Elvis Duran above and be sure to check out his new single with Kygo Lose Somebody out now!