On the heels of his latest release 'I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2),' following the outrageously successful run he had with his debut album, Teddy Swims checked in with Audacy’s Mike Adam at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to chat about his musical roots, superior song covers, future fatherhood fears, and more.

Definitively putting him on the map, Teddy's soulful anthem “Lose Control” was crowned Song of the Year on Billboard's 2024 Year-End Hot 100 Songs chart, and also claimed the No. 1 spot on Audacy’s 2024 Top Songs. The track’s monumental success also earned Swim's a 'Best New Artist' nomination at the 2025 GRAMMYs, at which he's also performed, along with his fellow nominees.

While discussing Teddy’s current genre-spanning musical vibes, Mike asked the musician if there was a particular genre he feels the most comfortable in, or one he wishes he felt more comfortable in. Attributing the starting point to developing his powerful pipes began with metal, Swims, shared, “My roots are as a screamer before I was a singer. So I think, like, I'm one of the gnarliest screamers.”

“I don't even think I'm that good of a singer,” Teddy humbly added, pointing to his throat, but actually vocal chords, to say, "I love this instrument… I think I can do all the acrobatics that it takes to do a singer. But I think I'm a really good screamer. I think my most favorite thing, like, where I'm most comfortable in is metal.”

Whether Teddy will ever get to scratch that itch again? He confessed he doesn’t know. However he is rather proud of getting “a writing cut on the new Linkin Park record,” and rightfully so.

“I wrote with them and did a few records with them…” Swims shared. Noting he “told Mike Shinoda, on the next record I was like, ‘Come on bro, you gotta put me on that record, bro.’” And while acknowledging that Emily Armstrong, the band’s relatively recently announced new lead singer, “is out of this world, like, incredible,” in his own self interest, he told Shinoda, “You should have left my voice on one of those songs, man.”

Raised in the South, Teddy grew up on soul music after being introduced to it by his dad, but he also grew up playing football, and was also a theater kid. Which made Mike wonder if Teddy felt like at any point he was living in completely different worlds.

While some might feel as though all those factors contrast, Teddy doesn’t agree, which makes so much sense when you try and think of putting Swims into a defined box, because he just doesn’t fit the mold. Which is a very good thing.

“No, I feel like… it’s weirder to know that other people have a different perspective or upbringing than you,” Teddy expressed. “You know, you always feel like people are the same… you're the center of your own experience, right? Like you're the lead role in your own movie, right? So like, I just never, you never realize other people are different until you get older to realize other people's expectations. When you're a kid, you're like, we're all doing this, right? I thought everybody was.”

“It all felt natural to be who I was," Teddy eventually went on to note. “I don't know, I didn't know that people were living different lives, you know?”

As Mike brought up, before Teddy's meteoric rise, like many other artists do during their come up, he posted covers on YouTube. Noting he has opinions about covers that outshine the originals, pointing out Whitney Houston’s rendition of “Higher Love,” Mike asked Teddy if he feels that way about any of his covers.

“None of them, everybody hates themselves a little bit," Teddy quipped, “like none of mine are as good as that.” That being said he did have some strong feelings about Jimmy Hendrix owning the cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.” Noting, “Bob Dylan even retired that song… he was like, that's Jimmy's song." Teddy also shouted out Tank’s rendition of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can't Mak ...