Meet Maddox Batson, rising teen star who went from TikTok to Lainey Wilson tour opener
Meet Maddox Batson, rising teen star who went from TikTok to Lainey Wilson tour opener
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Maddox Batson explains why he covered Justin Bieber's 'Love Yourself'
Singer-songwriter Maddox Batson tells USA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa about his inspirations, including his parents and Justin Bieber.
NEW YORK – Maddox Batson's latest trip to New York City is going much better than the last one. In April, the 15-year-old singer was forced to postpone a sold out show at Irving Plaza due to illness. But about a month later, Batson is back in the Big Apple and in better health. He caught a Yankees game in the Bronx, visited the Empire State Building, ate pizza in Manhattan and made up the concert, performing for a capacity crowd of 1,200 adoring fans.
"You want to have confidence, but in the back of your mind you're like, 'What if no one shows up?'" the country singer admits before headlining USA TODAY Acoustic, a new series that provides a stage for notable and rising talent across the USA TODAY Network. "But when I get out there and I finally get on stage and I see all my fans singing the words back to me, it's just like the coolest experience ever. I mean, blows my expectations out of the water."
Coming off his March debut at the Grand Ole Opry and ahead of his tour dates supporting Lainey Wilson, Batson chats with USA TODAY about his songwriting, the artists who inspire him and how it feels to go viral.
Maddox Batson breaks down his songwriting process
In March, Batson released his debut EP, "First Dance." The artist also dropped "First Dance (The After Party)" with three additional songs. He said he whittled down the 10 songs that went public from hundreds, and his key criteria involved checking three boxes before deciding on a song.
"You got relatability (lyrics), just to like my fan base but can also branch out to other people that aren't necessarily fans of me yet," he says. "Then you have catchiness; how good the song sounds. Then you have sound and production. There are plenty of songs that have one or two keys, but not a whole lot of them have all three."
As far as the relatability part, Batson admits he's not living a typical teenager's life as a touring musician, but he's still finding inspiration on the road.
"Every night there's things that happen to me or just things that I see that just sparks that little, 'Hey, you should write about this,'" he says. "Sometimes you really got to dig deep and sometimes it's right there in front of you. But I love writing."
What else is inspiring his music? Earlier this year Batson told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, that girls and his social media feed have provided that "spark" for studio sessions.
Maddox Batson recalls his first 'viral' moment
Batson has 3.4 million followers on TikTok. Before becoming a sensation on the platform, his account was getting banned but was unclear as to why, he says. While there's no public knowledge of music artists being outright banned for performing on the platform, TikTok has run in to royalty disputes with publishers that have forced the removal of certain song catalog (one such dispute with Universal Music Group was resolved last year).
Batson would go live on TikTok, performing with his father Dan. Then in August of 2023, he decided to post a cover of Zach Bryan's "Something in the Orange." The floodgates opened. He sat in his garage, refreshing his page and watching the views increase exponentially.
"I remember it hitting 1 million views and I ran around my house," Batson recalls. "I thought I was on top of the world. I thought I was 'him.' I thought I just entered celebrity status."
It currently sits at 5.4 million views.
Here's how Justin Bieber inspired Maddox Batson
Batson is not at a loss when asked about artists who have impacted his young career. The first name he mentions his country singer Bailey Zimmerman, who Batson says has become a friend. He also lists Morgan Wallen and Justin Bieber.
The comparisons to Bieber are not hard to draw: Both gained fame in their teens, both first saw success covering songs online (for Bieber, it was his YouTube channel), both gained the moniker of a "teen heartthrob" and both are from towns not exactly known as showbiz hotspots (Batson was raised in Birmingham, Alabama before his parents moved to Nashville; Bieber was raised outside Toronto in Canada).
"Being so young, I feel like it's hard to navigate what you're doing (in the music business)," he responds when asked about Bieber. "Me and him started at very similar ages, so just keeping a good stable family unit or good stable team around you, I feel like is very helpful. Being 15, I think I know everything, but I really don't."
Batson's self-awareness is beyond his years, but he still isn't taking himself too seriously.
"I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed," he jokes. "But I'm trying, maybe second (sharpest)."
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The denim brand also tags several pride products with the triangle symbol used by queer activists starting in the 1970s, 'proving that you can go beyond rainbows and remind people that the personal is political,' said Michael Wilke, the founder and executive director of LGBTQ-focused marketing consultancy AdRespect. Beauty labels that have stood by the LGBTQ+ community for decades are also staying active. Kiehl's, a Pride supporter since the 1980s, has an in-store campaign and is donating $150,000 to the Ali Forney Center, while MAC Cosmetics' 30-year-old Viva Glam initiative will donate $1 million and 100 percent of proceeds of a special-edition Kim Petras lip gloss to charities. Sephora teamed up with Haus Labs and Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation for a Pride campaign donating $1 from every purchase. Aesop is sponsoring its fifth annual Queer Library in select stores, giving away free copies of books by queer authors in partnership with Penguin Random House and the ACLU. 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