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Ryan Tedder stunned by Stevie Wonder/Ariana Grande recording session

Written by . Published: October 01 2016

Singer/songwriter Ryan Tedder is still pinching himself after landing an all night recording session with his hero Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande.


The OneRepublic frontman hit the studio with the odd couple to record his song Faith for the soundtrack of upcoming animated movie Sing, and admits it was a dream come true to get the two talents in the same room.


"Stevie came in around 6pm, Ariana arrived at 10, and we stayed up until three in the morning and talked music for hours," Ryan tells Billboard.


"The first song I ever learned on piano was I Just Called to Say I Love You. I told him (Stevie) that and he started playing it! Getting to know Stevie better has been a highlight. I'll wake up to him FaceTiming me, which is like the most bizarre experience."


And Tedder reveals Ariana also found a fan in the soul legend: "He and Ariana hit it off; he was impressed by her vocals."


The Counting Stars singer only wishes all his studio time was as enjoyable, confessing he really struggled when it came to working with Adele, because they both had the pressure of following up her monster album 21.


"21 was so catastrophically big that nobody, ­including herself, quite knew what to do to follow that," he explains.


But then he rediscovered a half-written track and offered it to the Brit: "I walked into the session with Remedy already started. I don't like to walk in with a finished song - it's kind of offensive if you do that when somebody is as talented a writer as Adele.


"I played it for her, and she was like, 'I want to write this now and I want to record this now, and this is going to be about my son'. It immediately ­resonated with her."

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