Teddy Swims: ‘If I'd had this success two years earlier, I'd have put it straight to my liver and right up my nose'

Independent

05-04-2025

Teddy Swims likes to make an entrance. At the Brits last month, the Georgia singer rocked up to the red carpet wearing a cape made from stuffed toys: if the fluorescent green teddy bears didn't blind you, the diamond grills flashing in his mouth will have done. Yet it's his voice – a full-throated baritone – that's currently everywhere. If you're on TikTok you won't have been able to avoid his 2023 single 'Lose Control' – one of that year's biggest hits. The spookified R&B swell of synth beats and squalling electric guitar is in the same vein as Ariana Grande 's 'Dangerous Woman' or Annie Lennox's take on 'I Put a Spell on You', and you'll have had a hard time getting it out of your head.
The man born Jaten Dimsdale is much cuddlier than his tattooed visage and diamond-studded teeth might suggest. 'I'm just a blossoming flower,' the 32-year-old tells me as we chat over video call. He's holed up in a hotel in Kensington ahead of the second of two sold-out shows at Wembley Arena, a world away from the home he shares with his girlfriend in Los Angeles. Blossoming he may be, but he's also one of a veritable horde of stars breaking into the mainstream after what has felt like years without a massive new act. He was at the Grammys in February, where he was nominated for Best New Artist alongside Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and RAYE, and his rousing performance was a reminder that, even as women dominated the ceremony, music fans still can't get enough of blokes with big voices – especially if they're singing over rootsy Americana or blue-eyed soul.
He had a great time at the Brit Awards, which offers 'a lot more booze' than the Grammys, apparently. 'I think it's just better [at the Brits]. At the Grammys, with LA in general, people are always getting their feelings hurt instead of celebrating music,' he says. 'Like, 'I should have got this. What about me?' It's like a competition, when it comes to art, and it doesn't have to be that way – [awards] don't define how good you are.'
Growing up in the Atlanta suburbs, Dimsdale learnt not to pay any mind to the music industry's more superficial concerns. The word 'patience' is tattooed over his right brow as a reminder that blossoming flowers require nurturing. Those tattoos have grown in number as his career has gone from hair metal cover bands to prog-rock groups, to sharing cover songs to YouTube – most notably his breakthrough version of Shania Twain's ballad 'You're Still the One', which has had more than 210 million views since he uploaded it in 2019.
As a result of that song, record labels swooped, and his debut album, 2023's I've Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1), charted in the top 20. The follow-up, 2025's Part 2, added some fresh ingredients to his melting pot of R&B, blues and soul and sent him hurtling into the top five.
He's grateful that it has taken him several years to make it. 'I guarantee that if I'd had this [success] even two years ago, I would have put it straight to my liver and right up my nose,' he declares. 'I would have been a child, I would have squandered it. I'm so grateful for the man I've become. I feel like I just got to that point where I feel like I'm deserving of it.' He hasn't always felt so deserving. 'I used to hope that if millions of people told me that I was good enough, then maybe I would feel that way about me too.' It was a rude awakening to find, in spite of those billions of streams and millions of fans, the imposter syndrome was still there: 'I told myself this would fix everything,' he says, grinning widely, referring to these milestones, 'and boy, did it not!'
While he's inevitably been lumped in with the other booming male breakthroughs of 2025, Dimsdale has managed to inject some much-needed colour into the scene with his bonkers fashion and love of spectacle – a peacock among the pigeons. His sound, too, strays away from guitar-strumming singer-songwriter tropes and opts instead for a big band effect, full of drama and panache. It creates a pleasing contrast with his lyrics, which are emotionally introspective and often deeply personal.
Music, as his albums' titles suggest, is where he likes to unpack his private turmoil. His debut was largely inspired by what he's described as a 'toxic' relationship muddled by substance abuse. 'I was in a bad place, spiritually, emotionally, physically… it was rough,' he says. Songs such as 'The Door' describe the moment he chose to take control: 'I said I would die for you, baby/ But I can't take this pain no more/ I thought I was willing/ But tonight I saved my life when I showed you the door.' He moves from a whisky-soaked bellow to the softest of whispers on 'You Still Get to Me', a lonely ballad about watching his ex move on with someone else. He believes there are only two reasons people hurt others: 'Some of them do it because they're just awful, and some do it to help themselves – it's not about you. I take my pain and use it as a lesson and keep moving.' And make a great record, I suggest. 'Worst-case scenario, she makes me a millionaire,' he agrees.
He grew up with a love of music, but chose to go to cosmetology school (the fascination with hair extends beyond glam metal bands, apparently), swayed by well-meaning folk who told him he needed a back-up plan, should his dream fail. It was his dad who told him he was wasting his time doing anything other than music. A few months after he signed his record deal with Warner, he bought his dad a new truck. 'I can never express enough how much it means that you supported me, stuck by me and trusted me,' he wrote in an emotional Instagram post.
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Dimsdale is aware that for older generations, and perhaps to some degree now, there's a bit of a stigma attached to men who are open about their feelings. 'It was like a weakness to go to therapy or be honest or to say I love you, or for boys to call each other pretty,' he says. 'We should tell each other how pretty we are!' He sounds unsure if that stigma is changing anytime soon, but he doesn't care. His willingness to be open about himself is why he thinks so many fans relate to his songs: 'Every night I get to be in front of thousands of people who've created this safe space to laugh, to cry… and I think in the same way, I've created a space for them too. It also means that all the bad people who aren't there for you, they wean themselves out of your life fast, and you're left with the tribe who really care.'
All the bad people who aren't there for you, they wean themselves out of your life fast
One such person is his girlfriend Raiche Wright, also a musician, who's pregnant with their first child. 'We're having a little boy in June,' he says, beaming. They're struggling to pick a name – Wright places a lot of importance in the meanings behind them, so has been vetoing several options. 'We might just call him Wembley,' Dimsdale cracks. He's excited to be a dad (his own father introduced him to his soul heroes, Al Green, Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye), and for his and Wright's impending move to Nashville. He's also pragmatic that his life will still contain both highs and lows: 'Some days I'm sad, and my girl's at home with our baby in her belly and I want to talk to her, but I've got to get on stage in front of 15,000 people when I'm still torn up,' he says. 'And the boys will tell me, 'Look man, these people [in the audience]... it's someone's birthday, it's someone's anniversary – they've come here to see us perform, so let's go out there and show them a good time, and after that we can sit down and figure it out.'
It was his relationship with Wright that partly spurred him into making Part 2 of I've Tried Everything But Therapy. 'The first record was all heartbreak and turmoil and I didn't want to end the album on that sort of note,' he explains. '[By the time I made] the second album, I'd actually tried therapy, I'd fallen in love, got a kid on the way, success under my belt.' Part 2 has a greater mood of optimism, expressed in tracks such as the meltingly smooth 'Are You Even Real' with R&B crooner Giveon, the sun-drenched doo-wop of 'Your Kind of Crazy', and the swaggering 'She Got It', an on-his-knees worship of a full-figured woman featuring singer Coco Jones and breakout rapper GloRilla.
'Women are freaking crushing it right now,' he says when I point to their rise alongside Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Doechii and Charli XCX, not to mention pop veterans such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. 'Music has never been in better hands. I've got such a beautiful mother, I've got my girl becoming this amazing mother… God is a woman,' the grandson of a Pentecostal preacher says. 'I'm a firm believer in like, let's get a lady in the office, you know what I'm saying?' His earnestness and gratitude is infectious, as is his attitude towards life. 'You've gotta choose happiness,' he tells me. 'Some days I'll wake up and be like, 'What are you upset about?' You're living your dream.' And some days you just need to bitch, and I'll give myself that space too. 'Girl, I wanna be upset. Let me be upset.' And that's OK. That's balance, baby.'