Though he’s not a natural born public figure like Pharrell or Timbaland, songwriter and producer Ryan Tedder is quietly one of the most successful pop architects of this young millennium. He’s crafted massive singles for Beyoncé (“Halo”), Kelly Clarkson (“Already Gone”) and Leona Lewis (“Bleeding Love”), but some of his biggest hits he’s saved for his own band, OneRepublic.
The band’s 2007 breakout single “Apologize” was the kind of song with such unstoppable reach that the public couldn’t help but learn to resent it—it spent more than a half year in the Top 10, nearly matching a record set by Santana’s “Smooth,” another song the world collectively overdosed on. If it seemed to some that Tedder’s best days on the charts were behind him, though, he proved those cynics wrong with OneRepublic’s latest mega-hit “Counting Stars,” a brooding, combustible folk-rock fusion that shoves the Mumford and Sons and Lumineers of the world onto the ground and stuffs dirt into their mouths. That song wasn’t a fluke, either. On the group’s latest album, Native, that group channels that conviction on a surprisingly potent record that takes ample cues from rock and EDM music. It is, to use a word that nobody ever would have associated with OneRepublic before, actually kind of badass. Who knew Tedder had it in him?
This morning Summerfest announced that OneRepublic is the festival's 11th and final Marcus Amphitheater headliner for 2014. They'll play the venue on Tuesday, July 1 with openers Mayer Hawthorne and American Authors.
Tickets go on sale Saturday, May 17 and include Summerfest admission.
