Teddy Swims reflects on his music helping fans in a recent interview
Teddy Swims expresses pride in how his music allows fans to connect with and take ownership of their emotional trauma, with his heartfelt lyrics and soulful sound.
Teddy Swims is proud that his music allows his fans to “take ownership of their emotional trauma".
The 32-year-old singer - real name Jaten Dimsdale - has seen his career skyrocket in 2024 and 2025 thanks to his albums 'I've Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 1)' and '(Part 2), which blend elements of pop, R&B and soul and his emotionally honest lyrics.
Teddy says it has been an incredibly rewwarding experience to play live and witness his fans relate their emotional pain to his lyrics and create something powerful and communal.
In an interview with SPIN, he said: "What’s so beautiful now is that I can take some of those songs, like 'Lose Control' or 'The Door', and I can see that I was in a dark place but just didn’t realize how dark. Now when I sing those songs, there are all these people singing along with me, thousands of people out there singing along. Now that I’m on the other side of heartbreak, now that there’s love and success and family and so many beautiful new things in my life, I can see how these songs are celebrating that heartbreak.
"Everybody has had something bad happen in their lives. We’ve all had some trauma, so now we put it into a song that we can sing together. At the end of the night everybody is screaming and dancing and we’re all having the best time, and we’re taking ownership of that trauma. We’re reclaiming ownership of our lives. It’s been the coolest thing to see how these songs have taken on their own life and have transformed into something like a celebration."
Teddy first gained attention thanks to his covers of popular songs on YouTube, which showcased his powerful vocals. In 2020, he released his debut EP 'Unlearning'. The music Swims makes often deals with themes of self-discovery, emotional vulnerability and personal growth.
Teddy says it's been important for him to let his fans take ownership of his songs and interpret them how they want to.
When asked how people can interpret his music, he said: "Everybody has their own relationships and their own circumstances that they bring to the songs. It’s the same for me. I’ll use this as an example: 'Tha Carter III' is one of my favourite albums of all time. I was just coming out of ninth grade. I was 15 years old and going to my first parties with high schoolers. I was smoking weed a lot for the first time and experiencing my own little teenage life."
"I know Wayne was going through his own thing when he was making that album, but when I hear the album, all I can hear is that summer, which was the most fun, the most eye-opening, the most beautiful story in my life.
"There’s nothing in the music about a 15-year-old kid coming of age, but it still brings me back to that time. And that’s truly the function of music, isn’t it? Everybody can take it and find their own meaning in it. That’s wonderful. I can still have my own connections to it, and it can still mean different things to different people. It’s almost like scripture in a way."
The singer also stated he wants the listener to feel how he felt when listening to his two albums, claiming on the other side of heartbreak he felt so much love and support on so many things.
Further going on to say: "Don’t let this kill you. Don’t let this ruin you. Stay on the path and it’ll get better. When I listen to these two albums, I can hear how much I’ve grown, and I hope the listener gets the same feeling. That’s what I wanted to communicate from the first record to the second."
Teddy has just concluded a tour of the UK and has now announced that he is heading to New Zealand and Australia for a tour this October.
