Ryan Tedder Explains Why He's Donating Profits from New Music to Charity

Ryan Tedder is opening up about his thoughts regarding new music amid the global health crisis.

The 40-year-old OneRepublic frontman spoke out in an interview with USA Today.

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When asked about the idea of releasing new music amid quarantine, he said: “Nobody can compete with the news cycle right now. And if you’re not doing that, you’re competing with Tiger King. We have this huge record that we wanted to drop in mid-May that we now won’t. It’s a summer song, it’s like the Beach Boys, it feels like it’s such a hit, but I’m not going to do it in the middle of a pandemic.”

“We dropped a charity song two weeks ago called “Better Days,” and it’s a non-cheesy anthem about what it feels like now to be in this time and space we’re in. But the only way I could release it in good conscience was by donating profits to the Red Cross, because I feel weird saying, ‘Come buy my stuff, check me out.’ Meanwhile, people are sick and dying. It’s very tone-deaf. And unless you’re an artist who had a lot of momentum going into this pandemic like The Weeknd or Dua Lipa, it’s really hard to get anyone to pay attention,” he went on to explain.

Click here to listen to OneRepublic‘s charity song.