Ryan Tedder on One Republic's enduring appeal, writing hits for the stars

Ryan Tedder's won three Grammy Awards and written hit songs for Adele, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift — among many others.

But the One Republic vocalist doesn't know if he's currently got a massive hit single hidden away among a collection of thousands of songs written over the years that have never seen the light of day.

"In an average week I do, I would say, about two songs a day in some form or fashion," he told Breakfast.

"I have a Miley Cyrus song that comes out this Friday that's been on my hard-drive for three years.

"It got reproduced, cleaned up, and changed. But it's just now coming out called Easy Lover.

"The process for that took years."

The prolific song-writer – behind Beyoncé's Halo and Adele's Rumour Has it – says people would be shocked to know how many times a hit record has come out of a random moment that jogs his memory.

"I'll be in Thailand on vacation and hear a song in a tuk-tuk that reminds me of a song I did six years ago with Adele or whoever.

"And I'll go [to my team] 'send me that song now!' And they'll go and find it, then I'll go: 'I'm gonna pitch that song right now!'"

The 45-year-old was set to return to New Zealand with One Republic in February next year – and was still "amused and grateful" at the band's enduring appeal.

"Our goal when we sat down and wrote our goals on a napkin in 2005 was to be able to play arenas in every city in the world, every major city that we can legally go to I want to be able to sell out the arena.

"The fact that we are still able to pull off a hit song every now and again… I'm absolutely grateful for it."