Ryan Tedder previews OneRepublic's new album: "We wanted to do some funny, cool s**t"

Since OneRepublic’s breakthrough in 2007 with Apologize, Ryan Tedder has been pretty damn dependable for a pop hit. As well as notching up five Top 10 singles (including the Number 1 Counting Stars) with his bandmates, he’s turned out a stellar list of global smashes for other artists, including Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love, Beyonce’s Halo and Ella Henderson’s Ghost.

However, as Ryan sits down with a group of music types including Official Charts to play a selection of almost-finished songs from OneRepublic’s upcoming album, he revealed that taking over Top 40 radio was never part of their original plan. “I got into to music to be in a band… I worshipped Oasis, Doves and Elbow and I wanted to be from Manchester,” he said, adding that Apologize’s success almost lead to the band’s break-up before they’d really ever got going.

MORE: Check out OneRepublic's chart history, including seven Top 40 singles

“Since then,” Ryan explained, “We’ve slowly shifted the needle back to something we believe in and a place that feels more authentic to us. We don’t want to have hits just to have hits – we wanted to do some fun cool s**t in the process.” So what does that mean for their fourth studio album?

Fortunately pop is still very much on the agenda – the songs we were played were some of their slickest yet – but the “fun cool s**t” he was referring to sees them breaking new ground and subtly shifting away from the rootsy stomp of Counting Stars and Love Runs Out; a style he says has since flooded the market and spurred him on “not to make a single gospel song on this record”.

We’re not allowed to mention song titles, names of co-writers or collaborations on the record, but we were played a couple of brilliant ones in the latter category that on paper sound ludicrous and potentially disastrous.

Fans will have already heard the album’s lead single Wherever I Go, a track that Ryan says “references the ‘90s and me obsessing over bands like Miike Snow and those strange Scandinavian sounds”. Similar quirks in the song’s production were littered throughout the rest of the six songs we heard, and the result offers something refreshingly different in the pop landscape, albeit with OneRepublic’s familiar anthemic stamp on it.

Fans can also expect “two huge ballads” on the record, something Ryan said the band have avoided since Apologize/Bleeding Love/Halo for fear of being defined as a ballads-only band. We heard one of them and can confirm it’s both huge and emotional.

As with all of OneRepublic’s previous efforts, the album’s subject matter is clearly autobiographical. “I write to get myself off," Ryan admitted. "And it’s by the grace of god that anyone else relates to it. I’m chasing things that give me goosebumps and things that I want to hear." Our favourite of the songs was one Ryan wrote about "the best summer ever" during the end of his teenage years and promising not to get swallowed up by adulthood. It's nostalgic, but with a killer chorus.

Going back to the band's breakthrough success nearly a decade ago, Ryan says OneRepublic were “tossed in the pop waters and forced to swim." And with their new album, they're "trying to see how far we can push it before the envelope rips. It’s really hard to do in the world of pop, but it’s what we’re aiming to do with this album."

OneRepublic's new single Wherever I Go is out now. Their new album follows later this year.