Teddy Swims is a lover. The vocal powerhouse, who merges honeyed soul with raucous rock energy and pleasing pop hooks, writes nearly all his songs about falling in or out of romantic entanglements. “To me, that’s just all there is,” he says. “You’re either making love or crying about it.” The Atlanta native, born Jaten Dimsdale, has been tugging at heartstrings since posting a series of covers from his bedroom studio in 2019, which generated hundreds of millions of views and scored him a deal with Warner Records. Teddy changed his focus to introspective originals on 2020’s Unlearning EP, garnering praise from American Songwriter, Billboard, and Rolling Stone, who named him an artist to watch in 2021. Soon thereafter, performances on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Today, and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and opening for Zac Brown Band’s Summer arena tour cemented his status as a rising star.

2022 marked a banner year for Teddy with the release of his two latest EPs, Tough Love and Sleep is Exhausting, collaborations with Meghan Trainor, ILLENIUM, MK, and BURNS, performances on Ellen, The Late Late Show With James Corden, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and his Tough Love headline world tour. Also in 2022, a snippet of Teddy singing the Journey classic “Don’t Stop Believin’” went viral with over 80 million views, and he released the full song and was invited to perform with Journey founder Neal Schon on America’s Got Talent. With more than 750 million global streams to his credit, as well as a social following that exceeds 10 million, Teddy’s songs of devotion have clearly connected. Part of reaching that audience, for him, is getting to show his love in person. There are always more new friends to bare his soul to. “I’m so excited to meet people and shake hands and hug necks,” he says.