Ryan Tedder Quotes

When you're on stage, unless you surrender to the moment, you're not telling the truth. I look for people that tell me the truth.

I've come to realize that people connect more when they know you're telling them the truth or some aspect of your story, some mutated version of how you are experiencing this life.

The more we can be honest about ourselves as filmmakers, than the more we can be honest with people who see the films.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

I would hate to make music and people love me for something that isn't me.

I wasn't playing the music, the music was playing me... and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn't wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud... You cannot fool an audience.

It's hard to talk about yourself onstage and be sincere about it.

This is what I believe about performing: There is no reason to be on stage - there is no reason to be there - if you're not going to put all your baggage somewhere else and just be honest. Whatever you're doing - screw it up, do great - just be there, and be honest. That's the most important thing.

I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.

It always gave me the creeps when I saw performers who desperately wanted the audience to like them. That's not what I'm about.

Own every note I sing and sell it. Make a connection to the audience. That's what it comes down to, you know?

I'm a writer. My job is to speak what - that which I think is true. If that bridges the gap, that's good. If it doesn't, that's too bad.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

I want to tell stories that I feel for, and I don't want to be a sell-out.

I suppose my job is to describe spaces that are honest to me. And the goal, I suppose, is that the listener can hear themselves in some way in that song and also, in some way, hear me. And so if the listener is able to identify with my honesty then I'm being the most helpful I can possibly be.

The danger with genre is playing genre instead of playing the honesty of what's going on.

It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.

I've listened to 'Frank' so many times. She was so honest and herself. I think one of the hardest things for an artist to do is tell the truth, but that's what Amy Winehouse did, and it's what I want to do - if you want to write songs that connect with people, I think they really need to believe what you're talking about.

I'm a student of Eric Church, and I say that a lot... I was drawn to it because of the honesty and because it's got rough edges on it. He doesn't shy away from anything, and that's the way I wanted to be.

As an artist, I want it to be so simple that anyone can understand it. No matter what age you are, you're going to feel it because it's real. I don't like to sugar coat. There's not too many artists that can tell stories and be vulnerable on the mic.

You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.

I've always been really open onstage.

When I'm on a stage, it's just me, singing a song with words that I wrote and I believe in. And if I don't believe in them anymore, I'll stop singing that song.

I knew what I didn't want, and I knew whatever it was going to be it had to be believable and it had to come from me and I had to drive it. The way I write is very honest and when I think of the music that I listened to growing up, I loved it because I believed it.

I’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I’d never lip-synch. It’s just not me.