PMS: After you guys rose to fame with the release of your single "Apologize", are there times when you feel completely overwhelmed and want a break from it all?

OR: We’ve definitely had our moments of exhaustion on the road, but doing this for a living is a lot of work, and getting the chance to do so is a lot like winning the lottery. A break every now and then is always nice, though.

PMS: How has your life been affected the most by the success?

OR: I think that a lot of the things that have come along with the success of Dreaming Out Loud have really refined my perspective and my outlook on life in a way that I definitely didn’t expect. Being able to travel so much of the world and experience life as it is for such a broad range of people or cultures can be the best education one could imagine. It’s also been enlightening to lose sleep over more important things than being flat broke or getting dropped from your record label. We’ve all learned a lot about ourselves and a lot about life since we put that out, and I can’t think of anything more important than that.

More after the jump!

PMS: Everyone seems to be waiting for your album Waking Up to be released. What’s the biggest difference we can expect from this one in comparison to your last album, Dreaming Out Loud?

OR:  Waking Up is the record that we all wanted to make. We’ve been playing the bulk of Dreaming Out Loud for five or six years now, so when it came time to write this one, writing a bunch of mid-tempo ballads or straight ahead pop rock songs was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. We didn’t want to try and write another Stop and Stare or Apologize. We wanted to make a record that would hit harder and break down prettier and move the listener more and maybe shake an ass or two. We wanted to do something bold because we felt that anything less would be disingenuous.

PMS: What’s the inspiration behind the Waking Up cover art?

OR:  Jerrod Bettis, who played drums for us before Eddie, saw a trash can with a beautiful Jackson Pollock-looking splatter on it one day while he was walking around in Seattle. He took a photo of it and painted it with a bunch of different colors and we knew right then that we had found our cover.

PMS: Is there a track on the new album that you just felt particularly connected to?

OR:  Missing Persons 1&2 might be my favorite track on the album. I’m especially proud of that one making it on there. There was also a moment in London while we were recording the orchestra on the title track that Ryan and I almost started sobbing. We looked like little girls.

PMS: You guys recently released the album’s lead single, "All the Right Moves." What do you guys like most about it, and was there anything in particular that inspired you to write it?

OR:  The disconnect between what you have, what you want, and what you thought you wanted is a theme that appears throughout Waking Up, and it sort of originated with All the Right Moves. We’ve been playing that one live for about a year now, and I still love it every time, so I guess that’s a good sign.

PMS: Are there any rituals that you guys do before shows?

OR:  A few of the guys ceremoniously drink a little scotch right before we hit the stage. I like to stretch out on the floor and do a bit of yoga if there’s time.

PMS: As a band, are there any musicians or other bands who inspired you musically?

OR:  So many. We’ve got five pretty scattered musical backgrounds but we all overlap where it counts. Queen, Beatles, lots of Britpop, Classical music, film scores, Hip Hop, Beach Boys, Beck, etc… We listen to almost anything.

PMS: What has been your biggest challenge since making a name for yourselves in the music industry?

OR: Trying to get what I would consider good music back on modern radio is a bitch! Seriously though, maintaining a name in music is just as hard as making one. Short of being Bruce Springsteen, you’ve got to keep working and pushing forward all of the time.

PMS: How did you guys come up with the name OneRepublic?

 OR:  We played for years under the name "Republic" and then added the One to make the name more reflective of our original goal to make music that was everyone’s. That and it rhymes with our alter ego band, "Wonder Puppet".

PMS: When you guys aren’t traveling around the world or recording music, what do you like to do?

OR:  Record more music? We like skiing and snowboarding and bicycling and spending time with our families. We rarely ever get any time off, so spending time with the people we care about is really the only thing we get to do outside of music.

PMS: Finally, can you give a shout out to Pop Music Scene fans and let them know why you should by their album?

OR:  Don’t buy our album because anyone says it’s this or it’s that. There’s way too much of that out there. That being said, I think Waking Up is awesome and we would love for all of you to give it a listen and see what you think.

Images used with permission

Post from: Pop Music Scene

He says of his new girlfriend, "Katy’s lovely. I am living in a different way at the moment. Regardless of what happens in my current situation, I am unlikely to be satisfied with calamitous promiscuity of the preceding five or six years.”

He reveals to the British Sunday Times, "I am ready for children actually. It’s been seven years since I took drugs. I’ve made a film. I don’t have to fight so much. I’ve grown weary of the carousel. I’m an only child of a single mother – it probably meant that I’m demanding and have high expectations of women."

Adding, "I look for salvation and redemption, to be utterly embraced. It’s a ridiculous, romantic and tragic idea that there’s someone who’s going to save you, that we need our own personal Jesus. Salvation comes from within.”

Um…wow. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just getting used to the fact that they’re together at all, never mind the thought of them having children!

Image: Zuma Press

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She was asked about what she felt about the constant comparisons between herself and newbie, Lady Gaga. Madonna said that she did see the similarities between them and that “When I saw her, she didn’t have a lot of money for her production. She’s got holes in her fishnets, and there’s mistakes everywhere. It was kind of a mess, but I can see that she has that IT Factor. It’s nice to see that at a raw stage.”

Madonna’s worked with a lot of people including Justin Timberlake, who she says she admires and is a great songwriter. She calls him “sort of a Cary Grant. I love him. I love working with him."

Yes, working with Justin has been great, but the Queen of Pop says that she wishes she would have been able to work with a special rapper, who just didn’t give a hoot enough to try. "I wanted to work with Eminem. I don’t think he wanted to work with me. Maybe he’s shy."

That could have made an interesting collaboration! Continuing on with the interview, Madonna was also not afraid to admit that her divorce from Guy Ritchie was not at all pleasant. She admits that it was "…challenging…I’m very grateful that I had work to do. I may have thrown myself off a building.”

On what was the most challenging part of her career, she says, "Working on EVITA. It’s a whole different singing sensibility. I had to seriously work with a vocal coach."

Well, now with the release of her greatest hits CD, Celebration, it’s nice to hear a bit from Madonna about her career and personal life!

Image: Newscom

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She defends the rapper, saying that "everybody makes mistakes."

She continued, "He feels so f***ing bad. He really does. I think that everyone can get so caught up in gossip and stuff. I felt like that moment kind of like really portrayed him in a way that he really isn’t. It was just a random moment."

She and Kanye are going on tour soon together, so I’m sure they’ve gotten close and she felt the need to defend him. But this isn’t the first time that Kanye’s done something like that…

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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Furtado said of their request, "The magazine was even prepared to pay me $500,000 to pose with my clothes on. I didn’t want Playboy on my resume at the age of 22. If they ask me when I’m 40 I’ll probably say yes."

A lot of celebs have a hard time adjusting to fame after they make it big and Nelly Furtado is one of those people. She reveals, "It was too much too soon. After two years of intense touring and partying I’d spend hours alone in my LA home, just staring at the floor."

Well, it’s good to see that she was able to stay true to her morals even if it is for a bunch of money. That’s an important quality to have.

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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She reveals, “Oh my god — he has got the tiniest little space. It is like a drawer and I have a room full of stuff! I can’t help it though. I don’t think he really minds.”

Also talking about her boyfriend, Leona says it’s hard to be apart all the time. She told Cosmopolitan magazine, “When I first came here [America] I wasn’t sure if I liked it. It’s taken a while because I love being at home with my family and I miss them when they’re not here.”

She continued “Obviously, a long-distance relationship is hard. But, like anything worth having, you make it work. You just have to keep the communication open — we Skype, we chat, we email. And he comes out when he can.”

They must really love each other! It seems like they’ve been able to make it work this far!

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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Katy tells Live magazine, “I was 21 at the time. My boyfriend [at the time] and I were on a crazy weekend in Vegas and, on a whim, we decided it would be a fun idea to pretend to get married just to freak out friends and family.”

Their parents fell for it! How did Katy and her boy toy pull it off? ‘We bought a wedding dress and a suit at a thrift store, picked up a wedding cake and went into the Little White Wedding Chapel to explain to the priest what we wanted.”

She continues, “He seemed fine about it and even made up a fake wedding certificate… We sent the photos off to everyone we knew and they all completely freaked out.”

She used that experience to further her career, putting forth another fabulous hit song. Katy also recently spoke about how she used to long for fame, fortune…and a nice rack.

Katy admits, “All I wanted out of life was a hit record and a great pair of boobs. I woke up one morning and I had both. I had finally arrived.’

She also says she loves her body because she can be so versatile with whatever she wants to wear. She says, “One a Monday I could be a Betty Boop figure. "On a Tuesday I’ll be Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. On a Wednesday I could be wearing S&M rubber.

Of the paparazzi following her around, “Most of the time I welcome attention but there are days when I need to keep a healthy distance from it. When I pop down the grocery store to buy some milk I leave all my glittery costumes at home.”

For the record, Katy is a 32 DD cup size. It’s great that she seems so happy and content with how her life has turned out, but if I hear her talk about her boobs one more time…

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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He says of turning 17, "It’s exciting. I feel 24 hours different than when I was 16.

He elaborates, "I tend to keep things low key for my birthdays in general. It’s so much attention that it can be a bit overwhelming. But it’s nice when people do things to celebrate. I have tonight off and I think we have something planned. We’ll see how it roles out."

I bet you’re dying to know what he got for his birthday. It was a piano! He explains, "It’s actually the piano I wrote ‘A Little Bit Longer’ on. It’s definitely got a special meaning for me. I originally wanted to get a plaque just to put on the piano when I got there saying that I wrote the song on, but the family just decided to get it for me."

He describes where he plans on putting the piano, "I think I’m going to put it in our office where our management team works. So that will be nice. It’s a nice piece of memorabilia with lots of meaning.”

Hopefully Nick had a good day and will be enjoying his new piano!

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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The Hannah Montana star told Access Hollywood, "There’s a lot of people I’m supposedly dating these days. But I’m just kicking it right now, I don’t really have time for a huge relationship. There’s no dude."

She also spoke about how hard she works and how happy she is that she’s not going to a regular high school. She expresses, "I work a lot harder than a lot of people my age, I would say, but everyone has their own challenges. This is something that comes easily to me. I think of high school and I’m like ‘Aghh!’ I couldn’t do it. I think this is easier than going to a normal high school.”

She continues, "As you get older, I’ve been able to work a little harder, and like, building things, things I never would have had the confidence in myself to do before. I would have said, ‘I don’t know if I want to do that’ – now I’m able to have the confidence."

Miley is also going on tour this fall, so if you’re a fan, make sure to keep your eyes out for tickets. According to Miley the shows are going to be great, "You have to see the show. It’s things that I never could have done before," she reveals.

You’ve got to hand it to Miley. It can’t be easing being a teenager in the spotlight, with people constantly wanting her to be a role model for their kids. I has to be tough. Though she definitely has had some misjudgments, I think overall, she’s down-to-earth.

Image: Bauer-Griffin

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The singer also revealed that in the past, she would pass the time by doing cocaine and listening to The Cure. She says, “My cocaine soundtrack was The Cure. I loved all their music, but I listened to this one song on repeat while I did bags and bags of cocaine. ‘Whatever I do/It’s not enough.’ Isn’t that funny?

She continued,“At the time I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me until my friends came over and said, ‘Are you doing this alone?’ Um, yes. Me and my mirror.”

Craziness! Well, hopefully, she’s abandoned the whole drug thing and is just focusing on pumping out those catchy tunes. Enjoy the pics!

Two more pics after the jump!

Image: Zuma Press

Post from: Pop Music Scene