Timbaland turned down the opportunity to earn publishing from a successful song in his catalog.
First released in 2006, “Apologize” was OneRepublic’s lead single that was later featured on their debut album “Dreaming Out Loud.” It was originally written and sung by the group’s frontman Ryan Tedder.
OneRepublic was then approached by hit producer Timbaland to remix the song, which was later listed on his 2007 album “Shock Value.” Their collaboration was a success, reaching the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Tedder says he is grateful to Timbaland, as the remix was “a life changer.” It allowed him to purchase a home, made possible through their publishing agreement, which amounted to Timbaland waiving his portion.
“The truth of the matter is when they called me about the publishing splits, I was grimacing,” he said during a recent interview on “Behind The Wall” podcast with Daniel Wall. “I was ready to just be like, ‘I’m gonna get creamed on this. They’re gonna take half the song or more.’ And the manager calls and goes, ‘Tim doesn’t wanna take any publishing, buddy. He’s not gonna touch it. He’s like, it’s your song. You wrote it. You played him that song, like, 2 years ago. He’s not trying to take food off your table. He produced the remix. You wrote the song. So he’s not taking any publishing.’”
The three-time Grammy-winning songwriter added that the experience was a turning point for him. “He had all the leverage in the world, and he said, ‘I didn’t write the song. I’m not taking any publishing.’ It was that clean, and he let me keep a 100% of that record. And that changed my life,” he recalled. “I’ll give Tim props to the rest of my life for that because that was that was a life changer for me. That’s how I bought a house.”
