Latest news with #USATODAYAcoustic
USA Today
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
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 Show Caption Hide Caption 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)."
USA Today
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Exclusive: Laundry Day reveals upcoming album and how The 1975's Matty Healy inspired them
Exclusive: Laundry Day reveals upcoming album and how The 1975's Matty Healy inspired them Show Caption Hide Caption LAUNDRY DAY debuts USA TODAY Acoustic with 'Damn Shame' USA TODAY Acoustic launches with LAUNDRY DAY's heartfelt performance of "Damn Shame." Don't miss this special moment. USA TODAY NEW YORK ‒ Laundry Day, the pop-rock band of four musicians who met at their Manhattan high school, revealed exclusively to USA TODAY that the group's sixth studio album is coming this summer. "We're working on a ton of music right now," vocalist Jude Ciulla-Lipkin says. "We've been putting out like a song a month, which has been incredible. We're trying to make the album of the summer, so we're excited." Laundry Day also includes vocalist/instrumentalist Sawyer Nunes, guitarist Henry Weingartner and bassist Henry Pearl. The group is the first act to perform on USA TODAY Acoustic, a new series that provides a stage for notable and rising talent across the USA TODAY Network. The band's combination of boyish charm, big-city energy and catchy tunes has not only cultivated a following but also landed the group on several big stages. In recent years, Laundry Day has opened up for The 1975, Ed Sheeran, Teezo Touchdown and Clairo. Ciulla-Lipkin immediately recalls an interaction with The 1975 as a seminal moment for the group. "We were working on this EP ('Light Up') and we were like, 'Can we play it for you guys?' " the singer recalls the 2019 interaction. The 1975 agreed and invited Laundry Day onto its tour bus, which is also outfitted with a studio. "They just loved it so much. Matty (Healy) was just like, 'If you guys keep this up and lean into the "poppiness," you guys are gonna be so big.' "Hearing that from one of our heroes was pretty incredible." Laundry Day talks 'Big Time' inspiration and collaborator Laundry Day's latest music video is for the song "Damn Shame." The group uses several props in the piece, including a vintage cover of The Journal News when the New York Yankees won the World Series in 2000. The Journal News is part of the USA TODAY Network. There's also a familiar voice at the start of the video: Big Time Rush star Kendall Schmidt. The 1975's Matty Healy inspired pop band Laundry Day with these words Before performing for USA TODAY Acoustic, pop-rock band Laundry Day reveals to Ralphie Aversa that the group will release a new album this summer. "(Schmidt) was one of the first celebrities to interact with our videos," Ciulla-Lipkin says, noting the band "grew up on Big Time Rush." "Then he just stayed around, like he would find other videos. I guess we were just in his algorithm." Schmidt is far from the only celebrity who interacts with the group online: through TikTok and Instagram, the group has racked up tens of millions of views while garnering co-signs from Drake, Olivia Rodrigo and the aforementioned Matty Healy. "My favorite part of (the band) is the live show," Pearl says. "When you're in front of so many people and they're singing back to you, that's really fun." "Going viral on TikTok is pretty fun too," Ciulla-Lipkin adds. "The dopamine from that is kind of unmatched."
