When Teddy Swims attended the MTV Awards last September, he was nominated for four awards, including Best New Artist.

Ultimately, Chappelle Rowan and Sabrina Carpenter teamed up to deny him a single “Moon Man” trophy, but the singer left behind something far more valuable.

“I didn’t realize until a few weeks later that my partner and I were pregnant that night,” he smiles.

“We’re due in June and everything is going great. I think we’re going to make it.”

Fans may not associate family happiness with teddy swimming.

His breakthrough single “Lose Control” and hit album “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy” were rooted in dysfunction, addiction and heartbreak.

They were inspired by a toxic, mutually destructive relationship from which he escaped. In the past, he has described it as a “really co-dependent lifestyle” that went from “crazy to crazy” as both parties “exploited each other’s shame”.

As he sings on a recent single, “When I show you that door, I save my life.”

But that’s just one chapter of the story for 32-year-old Georgia native Jaten Dimsdale.

He explains what happened next as he releases his second album, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Part 2, on Friday.

“I learned that love doesn’t have to be a high-and-low thing — fighting and pulling teeth to stay together,” he said.

“The first album was a lot of chaos and there wasn’t a lot of closure. So I wanted to come back and say, ‘Here’s me on the other side of this and I’m doing better’.

“I feel like, as a listener, I want to hear there’s a way out.”

”

“Are you the stuff of a dream or something I made up?“He was curious about the smooth R&B beat of ‘Are You Real’.

Later, on the acoustic guitar ballad “If You Ever Change Your Mind,” he croons: “I love you, I love you,” with a quiet sincerity rarely seen in pop records.

Musically, the album’s tone is the same as before – a brand of 1960s soul, with dusty piano grooves and rattling guitar lines given a modern pop sheen and a hint of rock ‘n’ roll.

But it’s not all hearts and flowers. “Black and White”‘s gorgeous soul calls for tolerance, inspired by the prejudice Dimsdale and his partners, who are both part black and white, faced.

“I see people looking disgusted because we have different skin colors — especially in the South,” he said.

“But it’s happy to fall in love with someone of a different color, a different shape, a different size, the same gender or whatever.

“Why do you hate this? It’s such a backwards thing.”

Dimsdale learned acceptance the hard way. His grandfather, born in Conyers, a suburb east of Atlanta, was a Pentecostal preacher with a fixed view of the world and a difficult family life to navigate.

His parents divorced when he was three, and although both remarried, their new relationships had problems. His mother, with whom he lived, married an alcoholic who left Dinsdale suddenly when he was 18 and never spoke to the family again.

The father he saw at the weekend was married to a woman who suffered from severe mental health problems, including schizophrenia, and spent a long time in hospital. His father raised Dimsdale’s stepbrothers almost single-handedly.

“He works 18 hours a day and still does his homework and goes to training,” he said.

“I can’t describe how amazing this man is.”

Dimsdale was a late bloomer musically. As a young man, he was a dedicated football player until a friend convinced him to audition for the school’s production of “Damn Yankees.”

The musical sparked a love of singing. He studied vocal techniques on YouTube and immersed himself in the performances of Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

After graduating, he began playing with local metal bands and adopted the online forum name “Swims” – sometimes a stand-in for “Someone Who isn’t Me Something”. Teddy, meanwhile, was a childhood nickname based on his affable, lovable personality.

But it was his cover of Shania Twain’s country ballad “You’re Still The One” that earned him his big break.

On YouTube, it has been viewed 197 million times. One of the audience members was a talent scout from Warner Bros. Records, who signed Dimsdale to a record deal on Christmas Eve 2019.

They teamed up the musician with professional writers like Julian Bunetta (Sabrina Carpenter, One Direction) and Mikky Ekko (Rihanna, Drake), but he also retained his high school band, Freak Feely, with whom he still plays to this day.

After three EPs and hundreds of sessions, they wrote “Losing Control,” and Dinsdale immediately “knew this was going to change my life.”

He is right. With 2.2 billion streams worldwide, it’s one of the most successful songs on the charts in recent times, but it took time to find an audience.

There are no viral moments or TikTok trends associated with “Losing Control.” Instead, Dimsdale “did it the old-fashioned way.”

“We showed up and did every interview we could,” he said. “We went to every office and radio station and shook everyone’s hand. We stopped every busker on the street.”

He believes, without a doubt, that personal style trumps all else.

“People like to see their friends win, so if you go out and make time for them, it’s better than having a playlist appear on your desk or getting a little document in your email saying, ‘Hey, can you do that? ? Promote this song?

“That’s the old way of handling records before streaming.”

He shyly admits that the song made him a millionaire (“So I can’t get too mad at that girl anymore, okay?”) but he’s come to realize that making money means spending money.

“A million dollars goes so fast,” he said. “Once you get 66 people on a tour with all the gear and lights, everything can be done as quickly as possible.

“$20 still means $20 to me, but the amount of money that goes in and out sometimes seems scary.”

As we speak, he’s rehearsing in Pennsylvania for his first European stage tour, which includes two nights at Wembley this March.

The stage had just been set up and he couldn’t wait to get familiar with all the ramps and video walls. Music…not so much.

“I wouldn’t say I’m tired of these songs, but we’ve been playing them nonstop for two weeks,” he said. “I can’t wait for people to sing along so I can fall in love with them again.”

If you’ve ever seen Teddy swim, you know he’s putting his heart on the line.

have countless videos He was sobbing perform something I’ll never knowa song about abandonment and grief. On the upcoming tour, he will play back-to-back with the new tearjerker Northern Lights, a work that reaches even deeper into our hearts.

He’s going to be a mess – but Dimsdale insists that’s a good thing.

“Every day I try to cry a little bit,” he said. “It’s just the pain leaving the body.

“It’s a constant reminder that no matter what you go through, there’s happiness on the other side of it.”

With his bearded, tattooed face, you might not expect him to have such a high level of emotional intelligence – but Dimsdale’s model of masculinity isn’t afraid to share how he’s feeling.

“I’m my dad’s son,” he said. “He’s just a sensitive guy. He’ll tell you he loves you, he’ll tell you he’s proud of you. Man, I’ll still be sitting there, laying in his arms when we’re watching TV on the couch ”

“He was the most beautiful, humble man I have ever met. Second only to Jesus Christ.”

So, the obvious question is: Is Dad excited about becoming a grandfather?

“He was doing backflips,” the singer said with a laugh.

“I’m almost afraid of having him as a grandfather because I want my kids to think I’m cool, too.”