Teddy Swims shares the story behind his Hot 100 hit "Lose Control," his reaction to the song's massive success, getting to meeting one of his vocal heroes, Kelly Clarkson, working with stars like Maren Morris and Meghan Trainor, why he named his debut album 'I've Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 1),' who he'd love to sing and work with in the future and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00 Only the first time we've ever had a repeat guest here in the studio. So welcome back.
00:04 Cool, maybe they won't push my session back 30 minutes again.
00:07 Hey listen, you're famous now.
00:09 Hey y'all, I'm Teddy Swims and you're watching Billboard News.
00:12 It's Tetris with Billboard News and I'm hanging out with my fellow homie from Georgia, Teddy Swims.
00:20 Hey, Myro, so good to be back with you, man.
00:23 She's the devil, she's the devil in a dress.
00:28 It felt like love for a minute, guess you can't hold a committee.
00:34 I lose control.
00:41 Lose Control Hot 100 Top 10. Your first time in the top 10 on the chart, man. How's that feel?
00:47 It feels great. I'm just humbled and justified.
00:52 And I mean, the promo tour for the song to me has been so impressive.
00:56 You've been on the Kelly Clarkson Show, The Voice, Today Show.
00:59 How's it been to be in front of all these audiences performing?
01:01 It's really amazing. I think especially with Kelly, that was just so cool to be such a huge fan forever.
01:08 You know, she was like this whole season, she's like, "Just give me Teddy Swims, give me Teddy Swims."
01:12 And I was just so thrilled that she was such a fan, you know, and I was like, "Oh my God."
01:16 I didn't expect the kind of energy of her being such a fan and it was such a huge thing.
01:22 And then she's one of the best vocalists of all time.
01:25 So to have her respect your voice.
01:26 Yeah, it was such a huge, huge, huge honor.
01:29 I just, I feel like it's so cool seeing people that I grew up loving that are also fans of mine now
01:35 and just being like, "Well, it's, you know, I'm merely a Kelly Clarkson fan."
01:39 You know what I mean? If you like my voice, it's because of you, Kelly.
01:42 You know, so I'm just so, so grateful for that.
01:45 And then to perform a song like that, I mean, the song has 500 million streams now.
01:49 Oh my God, no, it's crazy.
01:51 So obviously it's resonating with people.
01:54 So what do you feel like about this song specifically?
01:56 Everything you've recorded has resonated so much with fans.
01:59 You know, I felt like when we recorded it, when we first wrote it, I felt like,
02:03 "Oh, this is going to change my life."
02:05 Like you just had that feeling, you know?
02:06 And it's one of the first times I really had that feeling of like,
02:10 "Oh, this is going to change my life."
02:12 I just know it is.
02:12 And I mean, I'm happy that I get to, I guess it makes the pain I went through super necessary.
02:19 You know, I'm super grateful that now that that person broke my heart, you know, and shattered it.
02:25 And I think it's so great to know that that pain is necessary because it got me to this place.
02:30 And, you know, pain is paying the bills still.
02:32 So pain is paying the bills.
02:35 You know what I mean? It sure is.
02:36 And I mean, I'm trying to not be like, I'm not trying to,
02:39 I'm trying to stop putting myself in positions to get hurt and pay the bills
02:43 because you don't always have to do that.
02:44 But thankful that this one is, you know, they say the best revenge is success.
02:48 So there you have it, you know?
02:50 And for the listeners out there that are connecting with the song,
02:52 like tell me a little bit about the story behind this, because there's substance abuse.
02:56 There's obviously, you know, deeper meanings to what "Lose Control" is all about.
03:00 Well, you know, I felt like we got very codependent.
03:02 And to talk about this first, I always make sure to say like,
03:05 we're both better off, we're doing well, and there's no bad blood about any of it.
03:09 But, you know, when you're with somebody and you're in a situation like that,
03:13 I felt like we were just kind of codependent on our lifestyle.
03:16 We're living together and it was hard for us to break away from that lifestyle.
03:19 We're living together and feeling like there was no way out.
03:21 And sometimes you love somebody so much, there's just not,
03:25 you just don't belong together.
03:26 And as cliche as it is, you know, love something, you really got to let it go.
03:30 And we both are better off without each other.
03:33 And that was the hardest thing about that relationship was, you know,
03:37 continuing to keep the, I guess there's like a diminished returns on those kind of love,
03:44 you know, on those, the oxytocin and the dopamine rushes of the highs we had together.
03:49 And I feel like that just kind of became our lifestyle together.
03:53 And our lifestyle became something that was, can't last forever.
03:56 You know, you can't have that and this together.
04:00 It's just, you become enabling each other.
04:02 And that's kind of what we were doing there.
04:04 And I feel very, very grateful now to see both of us succeeding in our own ways
04:09 and being better not together, you know.
04:12 And that's a rough reality, but it's true.
04:15 And it's beautiful that way.
04:16 ♪ I lose control ♪
04:23 But when you go through like an emotional, you know,
04:25 tumultuous relationship like that,
04:27 how long do you take before you're able to turn it into art?
04:30 Like, do you go into the studio right away?
04:32 Like, when did you write "Lose Control"?
04:34 You know, what's so wide about that?
04:35 So that one and like maybe five of the songs, six of the songs from the record,
04:41 all came from this one camp we did back in February
04:44 before we were in Split Up.
04:45 - And I was... - Oh, really?
04:47 Yeah, and it was so strange.
04:48 It's like, you know, I guess my subconscious and my brain and my heart
04:53 were writing these songs and telling myself to get out of this situation
04:58 and that I was going through this.
04:59 But I was so just dumbing myself down with alcohol and substances
05:03 that I just like, I didn't even know I wasn't even there for myself.
05:06 And my subconscious was like, "Hey, you need to do this."
05:09 Your subconscious was your own...
05:12 Your subconscious was your therapist.
05:13 Yeah, your heart is telling you to do something
05:15 and you're just dumbing yourself down
05:17 that you don't even know it's telling you to tell yourself.
05:20 And so I was like, I wasn't even there for myself the whole time.
05:22 And my heart was just sitting there telling me like,
05:25 "Dude..."
05:26 You know, and I was having these nightmares all the time.
05:28 And I was like, and my brain was trying to tell me something.
05:30 You know, my heart was trying to tell me something.
05:31 I just was not listening to myself at all.
05:34 I was just like, just living in this thing,
05:36 thinking there was no way out.
05:37 And I had the answers.
05:39 Well, you titled the album, "I've Tried Everything But Therapy."
05:42 So talk to me about the name of the album
05:45 and kind of like those writing sessions and where you ended up
05:48 because it's been since September that you put the album out
05:50 and it's had a good response.
05:51 It has a good response.
05:53 Well, you know, I thought for myself, it was a promise to myself
05:56 that I was going to get the help that I needed
05:59 and maybe kind of open the door to talking about therapy.
06:03 And it was kind of a promise to myself that I would get started.
06:06 And now that I'm back home and off the road,
06:11 I still haven't started.
06:12 I was about to say, from what I've heard,
06:14 you still haven't been to therapy yet.
06:15 Yeah, I know. I lied to everyone.
06:17 Everyone.
06:18 The man named his album this.
06:21 But I am going to start.
06:22 You know, I am.
06:23 I was just that we're finding that person currently.
06:25 And, you know, and always that anxiety of just like,
06:29 is this going to change the fabric of my being?
06:32 And it's like, no, it's not.
06:33 You know, it's not.
06:35 And there's nothing wrong with me.
06:36 It's and I don't know why I dislike,
06:38 but I like my little tics and my little anxiety that I have
06:41 and my own ways of like I just which is not a right way to go about it.
06:46 But I've always had these certain I'm comfortable in my
06:49 my existence like it is.
06:52 And I'm terrified of change in that way.
06:54 And I don't want it to.
06:56 I don't know.
06:56 Maybe what if I what if I find out?
06:59 I don't know.
06:59 I don't know what I'm so nervous about, you know, but.
07:01 What you're going to find out about yourself.
07:03 Right. And don't I want to know
07:05 what is the Thelonious Monk says a genius is the most himself, you know?
07:09 And so I think the more I learn about myself and the older I'm getting,
07:13 I want to know.
07:14 But I guess there's just maybe it's a generational thing
07:17 that's always been this like thing about therapy that I'm like,
07:21 you know, too baby to do it.
07:23 But I'm I'm I'm I'm going to start.
07:25 You're going to do it.
07:26 You're going to do it.
07:27 But turning those anxieties into art.
07:29 What is the recording process like for you
07:31 when you're taking kind of these like heavier subjects
07:33 and going and recording about it?
07:35 Well, a lot of times it's sometimes there are those like,
07:38 you know, you you have you have a concept that you want to write about.
07:41 But a lot of times I like to just, you know, there's a chord progression going
07:46 and I just like to yell until
07:47 until it falls out.
07:50 You know, there's there's always like writing melodies to words or words
07:53 to melodies, but there's every once in a while that's so special place
07:56 where you just kind of
07:59 just like just word vomit until something happens, you know.
08:03 And so I just kind of sing for you.
08:05 You're going to leave me in the middle of the night.
08:10 Take a bad.
08:12 Sometimes it takes a little bit of tequila to get that brave.
08:16 You know, it takes it requires some certain bravery
08:18 to do something so sacred in front of strangers sometimes or or people that you
08:23 you know, it's so weird.
08:24 I think about music is like we it's it's one of the only art forms that I mean,
08:29 we do have our instruments and we do have.
08:31 But without it, you know, me and you could right now
08:33 write a song just out of thin air with nothing but our voices.
08:36 And it's it's something that could come straight from thin air
08:39 that we walk into a room and we leave a room with something
08:43 that now has its own life and can be physically recorded
08:46 and now immortalized forever.
08:48 And you said then about like kind of just like letting it out
08:52 and like letting your voice out and whatever happens happens.
08:54 So I think that's what I think about when I think of Teddy Swims,
08:56 like people don't know like where to place you.
08:59 Right. You have R&B, soul, rock influences.
09:02 Like there's so many genres and that come out of your voice.
09:05 So do you think about that in the recording process?
09:07 Like where your voice is going to go as far as the genre?
09:10 Yeah. I mean, sometimes like sometimes I have itches I want to scratch,
09:14 you know, like I try to not get in the way of what it is that
09:17 I think there's something circle in a room, you know, like
09:20 I was I was listening to that book, listening to it.
09:24 Yeah. Rick Rubin's like the creative act.
09:26 And it was it was so much of the same things that he was saying.
09:29 It's just like just getting out of the way of what the the thing
09:32 that is trying to drop into the room, you know, and and sometimes
09:36 I work with people and it's like we need a song like sounds like this
09:39 or does like this or songs like this.
09:40 But I think just the most natural thing that falls out
09:43 is always the right thing to do.
09:44 And and when you try to get in the way of like,
09:47 oh, this needs to sound more like this, then you kind of end up
09:50 getting in the way of yourself, you know, and getting away of the song
09:53 or what you really want to say.
09:54 And I think like there was a time through the pandemic
09:57 where I had such a writer's block, you know, and I was like
09:59 trying to make everything good.
10:01 And as soon as I gave up the idea of everything having to be good,
10:05 then I never had writer's block ever again.
10:07 And I don't think I think a writer's block is kind of coming from a place of
10:11 you wanting to create, take the creation to be this level of good
10:16 or sound more like this influence or comparing yourself to this or that.
10:20 You know, and I I think in itself, writer's block is not a real thing.
10:24 It's it's some anxiety that you've attached or some comparison
10:27 you've attached or something that you want out of creativity.
10:30 That's you got to listen to creativity.
10:32 You can't you can't control creativity.
10:34 It's not the it's not for you.
10:36 It's kind of its own deity in a way, you know.
10:39 Well, so you have all that knowledge and experience
10:41 because you've been doing this for a while.
10:42 You know, you get a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
10:45 People might use that overnight success.
10:47 Where did he come from?
10:48 I was looking at our DMs, man.
10:49 We were talking like you did a Warner Showcase back in 2020.
10:52 Yeah, just that. Yeah.
10:54 So you've been doing that.
10:55 We've known each other that long, too. It's crazy.
10:57 So I want to talk about this journey for people that might not know
11:01 Teddy Swims journey.
11:03 So like you started, I've heard like musical theater, like sports.
11:07 Like what were you like in high school?
11:08 Go through the whole process.
11:09 I was a punk in high school for sure.
11:11 Everybody was. Yeah.
11:14 My poor mother, man.
11:15 Sorry, mom. I put her through hell.
11:17 But, you know, I just have my best friend, Jesse.
11:21 He still plays in my band and writes and records with me, too.
11:23 And we've been best friends since like eighth grade, you know,
11:26 and I've known him since like the fifth grade.
11:28 So we're just like his dad was in bands
11:32 and his family was in theater and got me in a theater.
11:34 You guys were in a musical as well.
11:36 You and your best friend. What musical was it?
11:37 Rant we did together our senior year.
11:40 My very last musical I did with him was he played Mark and I played Roger in Rant.
11:44 And that's my favorite musical of all time.
11:47 I could I could do every character that from the bottom of the whole show right now.
11:51 I just that's my show from musicals.
11:54 And then maybe you were in a band as well.
11:57 Yeah, I was in a bunch of bands and I kind of came up doing a bunch of metal bands,
12:00 metalcore and hardcore bands, post hardcore, stuff like that.
12:03 And that's I was like started screaming at first before I ever was singing.
12:07 And you can actually still now find I I was bringing seven.
12:11 It's so embarrassing. But you can find it.
12:13 It's a band called Herote Bear.
12:15 And you can find my very first EP I did when I was like a senior in high school.
12:20 It's so bad.
12:21 It's still I love that it's still on the Internet.
12:23 It has to be, you know, because I and I always try to bring myself as much as possible
12:27 because if somebody goes and listens to Herote Bear, they could hear how bad we were.
12:31 You know, and God, we were so bad.
12:34 And I mean, at the time, everybody was like, oh, man, like even in our little scene
12:38 was like telling me I could sing.
12:40 And I call my friends now and I'm like, why did you guys tell me I could sing?
12:43 You liars. Why would you let me go on stage sounding like that?
12:47 But, you know, at the same time, thank God they lied to me.
12:51 You went from all of that and then you found this sweet spot with cover songs.
13:00 Yeah, sure did.
13:01 So where did that end up landing?
13:03 How did you end up deciding like this is what I want to do?
13:05 Well, weirdly enough, I never wanted to do the YouTube cover thing.
13:09 It was just that June 25th of 2019 is when I first started it,
13:14 because it was 10 years that Michael Jackson had passed away.
13:16 And so I just wanted to do a cover of Michael Jackson to kind of pay homage
13:21 to 10 years of him.
13:22 I mean, he's the best ever. Right.
13:24 So I just wanted to put that up.
13:26 And then it was crazy.
13:27 We uploaded it.
13:28 And then the next day we woke up and we were just like saw like 10,000 views
13:33 and we're just like,
13:34 10,000 views. Oh, my God, we are freaking out.
13:38 10,000 views was so massive at the time.
13:45 We were like, we're getting hammered tonight, boys.
13:46 10,000 views is huge.
13:48 Now, I'm like, again, with diminished returns now,
13:51 if like something doesn't get a million views, I'm like,
13:53 no one cares about anything I'm doing.
13:55 No one likes me.
13:56 You know, it's so weird how that thing works.
13:58 And it's also kind of some anxiety about, I guess, now that we have lose control
14:03 because now I know I have this like I want that or like nothing, you know,
14:08 and it's you're never satisfied.
14:10 But now you're just like more bummed out if I don't have another eight
14:14 or not even this one, I'm trying to enjoy this.
14:16 And I'm like, I want the whole thing.
14:18 I mean, number one.
14:19 Yeah. But what is it going to get?
14:20 What happens when you get that?
14:21 You're just like still like, why doesn't this feel as good as I thought it?
14:24 Why? Why don't I always have any purpose from that?
14:27 Yeah. So it's so silly that we do.
14:29 I mean, I think it's the best part about,
14:32 you know, what you want out of life is it never being enough.
14:35 I guess the I guess you still stay a student to life
14:38 and you still like want more and want more and want more.
14:40 But also, I feel like I got to find a balance on how to enjoy some success,
14:45 but still want more and not just be like, I can't look at that.
14:48 I want the I want the diamond song.
14:50 You know, I can't look at a platinum black. I don't want that.
14:54 You know, it's like there's something in my brain that says that.
14:56 But also, I should be taking those those
14:58 those accomplishments and enjoying them as well.
15:01 And and there's a balance between wanting more and enjoying what you have.
15:05 And I got to find that little fine line there.
15:08 Well, you said stay a student.
15:09 And I feel like even though you now have the success with Lose Control,
15:13 you're still doing covers like I saw the amazing cover you did for BBC
15:16 of Cool Summer by Taylor Swift.
15:18 It's a cool summer, it's cool.
15:22 The best, you know, I just I'd like the songwriting, the words,
15:26 the words, like the lyricism, everything about, you know,
15:30 and I just had this idea of that song
15:32 to I wanted to flip it and like a I guess like I've been on this
15:37 like huge 2000s like the fray and like Kings of Leon,
15:42 like Hoover's thing, like that old rock kick, you know, and
15:45 and I've been writing a lot of stuff like that, too.
15:47 I don't know if that's just because I want to scratch this itch of
15:50 like the first time I was in like seventh grade
15:53 holding somebody's hand and ice skating rink and like chasing cars
15:57 came on by Snow Patrol.
15:59 And you're just like you could still smell those scents.
16:01 And so I don't know if I just like want to scratch that itch for nostalgia's sake
16:04 or if that song that that sound can actually have a chance of coming back.
16:08 I don't know, but I've just been obsessed with
16:10 with like how to save a life, you know, like you found, you know, like a song.
16:14 God,
16:15 I've been so back into that feeling, that sound,
16:21 it makes me feel so alive again, you know, I'm young and
16:24 but I don't I don't I had that idea to do that with the cool summer
16:28 because that song in a way also made me feel young again.
16:31 Well, you have the magic for sure.
16:33 You were talking about like the Michael Jackson cover in 2019.
16:36 So it was only a year later that you end up being signed.
16:39 So how that was super fast.
16:41 Yeah, we we literally it's quite strange, man.
16:43 So June 25th, we started in December 24th of 2019.
16:47 I got signed. So it was it was like a while before Christmas.
16:52 Yeah. And it was it was six.
16:53 It was not even six months.
16:54 And wild enough.
16:55 I had I had when that Michael Jackson thing happened, I went to my boys
16:59 and I said, look, man, like just give me like six months of your life.
17:02 Like, let's all just get together.
17:04 Let's just do this thing together.
17:05 So we actually we all moved into this house together in Snellville.
17:09 Like it was a five bedroom house.
17:11 And we built plywood walls in between rooms and made like this place
17:15 into like an eight bedroom, like eight bedroom house.
17:18 And I had a landlord if they ever found out for I'm sure when we left,
17:22 we definitely get a deposit.
17:23 You didn't get a deposit.
17:24 No, absolutely not.
17:25 But so there was there was about there was like 12 of us
17:28 probably living in the house, maybe 15 of us there every day.
17:31 And for six months, we just I mean, we had our we had our like
17:35 merch distribution in the garage.
17:36 My older brother would come and just mail stuff out.
17:39 And we had two studios in there and we're just working and working on this stuff.
17:43 And like, I'll put our heads together for six months.
17:46 And and sure enough, like a day after six, a day before six months,
17:50 it was it was like it happened. We got signed.
17:52 And you got signed.
17:58 And then what I really enjoyed about watching your journey is that
18:01 you got all these cosigns.
18:03 We're talking about Kelly Clarkson earlier.
18:04 Yeah, well, but like you worked with obviously Meghan Trainor, you Maren Morris,
18:08 like so many people in the industry were like, this guy is legit.
18:11 So how did that feel?
18:13 Kind of being embraced by the industry so quickly.
18:15 And it feels it feels incredible.
18:17 I'm just so honored and so appreciative.
18:19 And even now going through TikTok and I'll find like these amazing singers
18:24 that are coming up and and I don't like I'll see like a fall as you.
18:26 And I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
18:28 I mean, I've always always what I wanted was to be the singer singer.
18:31 You know what I mean?
18:32 I wanted to be a real singer.
18:33 And the singers that I looked up to also say, wow, what a real singer.
18:38 And I think that's like that is the most sweet thing to me to know
18:42 that I'm the singer singer.
18:44 Well, now that you've had all these amazing cosigns, like what's next?
18:55 Like who's your like dream collab?
18:56 Who do you want to work?
18:57 Man, Stevie Wonder's like for me is and and Paul McCartney.
19:01 I just like this.
19:02 The great, you know, I still want to I just I would I would do anything
19:07 like to just be like a fly on the wall and just to see the CTV just in it.
19:12 And I just I just talk to feel some advice, feel some words.
19:16 And Stevie Wonder's that.
19:18 Al Green, like God.
19:27 And I would absolutely die to just
19:29 Otis Redding, if he was that's that's not number one of all time.
19:33 And so you're listening to these names.
19:34 And I think that says so much about your voice and why there's so much soul,
19:37 why there's so much depth to it, because the people you're naming are people
19:40 that are like, like you said, singer singers.
19:42 Yeah, I know.
19:43 And, you know, I'm just I'm grateful to be from Georgia, too.
19:45 I think I think I grew up in a greatest, like melting pot of I mean,
19:49 all the best soul singers ever, all the best, you know,
19:52 all the best singers ever.
19:53 And I think that's what I'm going to do.
19:54 I'm going to be a part of that melting pot of, I mean, all the best soul singers
19:58 ever, all the best country music ever, all the best hip hop and R&B ever.
20:02 I just I'm a little biased, but that's like just a hub of it's the hub of just
20:06 of culture, you know, and it's so beautiful to to have grown up in that
20:10 environment and be raised by so much different types of walks of life and music.
20:15 And and they've influenced me so, so profoundly.
20:18 Walking down the street last night.
20:23 You know, I'm not, you know, always comparing yourself to success.
20:26 But now that you have this top ten, you know, album came out in September.
20:29 You've been on tour.
20:30 What's next?
20:31 What's what's in your peripheral vision?
20:34 I'm I just you know, at this point in my life, I'm like I said, I'm trying to I
20:38 used to have all these plans and then you just get like hurt by plans and comparisons.
20:42 And so now I'm trying to do my best this year to just get out of life's way.
20:48 I find that I find that I only like direct my attention to things that are in front of me
20:53 that I like, that I want.
20:54 And because those things are looking for me as well.
20:58 So I just try to just like just walk forward with with with absolute dignity and try to
21:05 make sure I'm doing everything with intention, every footstep with intention.
21:09 And I think everything's just going to fall into place like it should.
21:11 So I'm trying to have a whole lot less expectations on life or or because, like I
21:18 said, I don't want to I don't want to like have all this like I want to have this big
21:21 number one situation and be like, man, that wasn't enough.
21:24 So I'm just getting out of life's way and just being thankful for everything that comes
21:28 into my lap. And that's I think that's just the most pure, innocent way that I can live
21:33 right now is on. I don't have enough, but also I'm not putting any expectations on
21:38 anything else either.
21:40 That's a beautiful way to live.
21:41 I'm so proud of you, man. Thanks for coming.
21:42 Yeah, of course.
21:44 I love you so much.
21:45 Thank you.
21:46 I.
21:47 I.
21:48 I.
21:49 I.
21:50 I.
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