Long before Chayce Beckham hit No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart with “23,” he was a teenager growing up in the hinterlands of Southern California with varied and diverse musical interests. The American Idol The Season 19 winner, who cites outlaw country legends Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard as influences, even went through a reggae phase — “around the same time I started smoking weed,” he says. Advertising sign'small Behind the Setlist podcast.
“I just really started out and looked for anything and everything,” says Beckham, who once sang and played guitar in The Sinking Sailors, a four-piece with a Caribbean-meets-skater sound not unlike her quintessential band Sublime Southern California. “I wanted to be a rapper at one point, I wanted to be a punk rocker and I wanted to be a reggae artist and then I went back to country music,” he says.
Coming full circle was a fateful – and fruitful – decision for Beckham. “23” at the top Advertising signon the Country Airplay chart (dated April 6) and has amassed nearly 500 million streams worldwide as of June 20, according to Luminate. It was the first time in 12 years that a No. 1 Country Airplay was written solo by the performer. The previous artist to achieve the feat? Taylor Swift with her song “Ours”.
Not that reggae-infused rock didn't suit Beckham's voice, but his delivery is a perfect fit for songs like “Everything I Need,” the latest single from his debut album, Bad for me (released April 5th on Wheelhouse Records). The song, along with “Devil I've Been,” a frequent show opener, came from a writing session with John Pierce (Zac Brown Band's “Sweet Annie,” Jon Paris' “Your Heart Or Mine”) and Lindsay Rimes (Nate Smith's “World On Fire”, Kane Brown's “Cool Again”) while on Luke Bryan's 2023 Farm tour.
“A bunch of the songs on the project we got from taking the writers on the road,” he says. “That was very good for me. I felt like they were much more relaxed. I could be a little more creative and not so pressured into the songs.”
Listen to the full interview with Chayce Beckham here or at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music the Everett.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/media/podcasts/chayce-beckham-reggae-phase-country-behind-the-setlist-interview-1235718386/