Who the Heck is Maddox Batson? The 15-Year-Old Country Prodigy Taking Nashville By Storm

It's very easy to underestimate Maddox Batson and attempt to place the Alabama prodigy into a box. When you hear his sleek, country-pop sound, often infused with trap-inspired instrumentation, you might liken him to Morgan Wallen. When you hear about his emergence on TikTok, you might cast comparisons with Bailey Zimmerman. And when you hear he's 15 years old, you might be tempted to draw the (somewhat unimaginative) similarities to Justin Bieber.

But in truth, Maddox Batson does not conform to any of these restrictive, cookie-cutter moulds. Yes, he undoubtedly takes inspiration from the contemporary, genre-blending style of Morgan Wallen, but there's a sense of warmth, charm and innocence that often feels missing from Wallen's discography.

By the same token, Maddox Batson has amassed a loyal following on TikTok, but unlike some other artists associated with the social media platform, Batson had an impressive songwriting track record before he was deep into his artist career. Who else, at the age of 15, can boast a credit on a Lana Del Rey and Quavo song (‘Tough’).

Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, Maddox Batson initially had his sights set on a sports career, before he was diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease. It's a tale we've heard with other country stars, where a dramatic path-altering injury halts their burgeoning basketball, football or baseball journey, leading to them picking up a guitar.

“I was a huge sports kid”, Maddox Batson recalls, “I thought I'd end up doing baseball or basketball, and I grew up doing that. I had played piano, I played guitar, but I was never really in love with it. I didn't really want to practice. But when I was playing basketball, I got this disease in my right knee, called Osgood-Schlatter disease”.

He expands, “Then I didn't have anything to do, and I slowly started falling in love with music, falling in love with playing the guitar, practicing and singing, because I had nothing else to do. My dad and I were playing and posting on social media. After I got hurt, I would just keep playing and practicing, and enjoying what I'm doing”.

It didn't take long for Maddox Batson's social media covers of the likes of Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and The Red Clay Strays to start picking up traction, with Batson then deciding to test an original track, the infectious, uptempo ‘Tears in the River’.

Arriving in March 2024, the bittersweet earworm went immensely viral, and led to Maddox Batson signing a record deal with Warner Records. Almost a year on from the release of the song that started it all, ‘Tears in the River’ - which now sits at around 10 million streams on Spotify alone - Batson has dropped his debut EP, First Dance.

It is pervaded by a distinct feeling of authenticity and sincerity. Batson doesn't fall into the trap of pandering to audiences older than he is - rather, he sings about topics that are pertinent to the space he's in right now. It's a project of rose-tinted, first-date butterflies, painful, disillusioning break-ups and jubilant high school parties.

The latter are brought to life in the music video for ‘Girl in Green’, an addictive ode to an apparent brush with destiny - one that was based on a real-life meeting with a fan.

“I was at a show in Lima, Ohio, and this girl was sitting in the front row with a few of her friends”, Batson reflects, “She was wearing a green dress, and I just couldn't take my eyes off her. I was praying while I was performing, like, ‘I hope she's in the meet and greet line’ - and she was! What really made me like her was she started talking to me. A lot of my fans - I love them dearly - but they get really, really nervous when they meet me and freeze up. She didn't really do that, and I liked that. It stuck with me and in my next studio session, I didn't have anything else to write about, so I was just like, ‘I'll write about this girl who was wearing green’”.

‘Girl in Green’ is one of the many places you can hear Morgan Wallen's influence, with the R&B-leaning instrumental and nursery rhyme-esque melody calling to mind ‘Neon Star (Country Boy Lullaby)’, while still being permeated by Batson's own sonic fingerprint. Similarly, ‘Problem’ feels like a pointed nod to Wallen's ‘I'm the Problem’.

When asked about the ‘Last Night’ megastar's impact on his sound, Maddox Batson eagerly responds, “A bajillion percent, Morgan Wallen is one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to my music, with the cadence and the instrumentals, because he does blur the lines between country and pop. He is leaning more country, but in some of those songs, he definitely has that more pop-leaning sound - and I just love that so much. I take a lot of inspiration from Morgan, but I also take a lot of inspiration from older artists, like Garth Brooks, George Strait and Keith Whitley, and then a little bit of Florida Georgia Line, too. Then I'll take inspiration on the pop side from Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake and One Direction”.

It's an eclectic smorgasbord of artists and aesthetics, but one that epitomises the modern shift towards genre-less streaming habits, where Luke Bryan, Drake and Kygo can all co-exist on one playlist, rather than feeling limited to just country or just pop.

“If you're truly a music fan, you don't stick to one genre...”, Maddox Batson underlines, “...Everyone listens to everything. I listen to quite literally everything from jazz to hardcore drill rap”.

Even so, there's no question that country music has Batson's heart, and he is quickly garnering an impressive collection of co-signs from some of the biggest artists in the genre.

This Fall, the ‘X's’ crooner will hit the road on one of the most keenly awaited country tours of the year, Lainey Wilson's Whirlwind run. Batson gushes, “It's truly an honor, because Lainey is killing the country game. I've been looking up to her since I started doing what I'm doing. She's such a great role model, and I couldn't ask for a better person to go be going out on tour with - especially for my first few arena shows. That'll be really, really cool. I get to play seven arena shows with her, including Bridgestone...I'm really, really excited, and it's going to be super awesome”.

Talking of role models, it's refreshing to hear that Maddox Batson has no shortage of established artists helping him to stay grounded and level-headed in the midst of his meteoric rise. All too often, we've seen the harmful effects of becoming too big too young - but thankfully, Batson is conscious of avoiding the pitfalls of fame.

The ‘I Don't Like You Anymore’ singer-songwriter muses, “Some of my favorites are Post Malone, Jelly Roll and Bailey Zimmerman, those types of guys, every time I talk to them, they're always trying to give me a little bit of advice. They don't want to over-flood me with stuff, because then my mind's just moving a million miles an hour. But they give me subtle pieces of advice about how to stay grounded, keep my head small and just stay chill without being all crazy. I feel like I can take good bits and pieces from what they tell me, as well as from their careers. They have had so much success - miles above me - so I take stuff from them and put it into what I'm doing, and hopefully one day, get to where they're at”.

At the rate Maddox Batson is going, with four of the seven tracks from First Dance into the millions on Spotify, 3.4 million followers on TikTok and just shy of a million on Instagram, you can't help but feel he's on-track to match the heights of his heroes.

Maddox Batson teases more music on the horizon, and we're hoping there's an album en route before the close of 2025. Either way, Batson continues to prove that, while he openly discusses the artists that have coloured his sound, he has nonetheless zeroed in on a unique, captivating and wildly popular style that feels true to him.

In addition, Maddox Batson spoke about some of the stand-out songs from ‘First Dance’, his break-out hit, ‘Tears in the River’, his dream collaboration and more:

“That one was me putting myself in other people's shoes. I was trying to be relatable, going into the studio and not having a whole lot to write about. We started brainstorming ideas of what we thought was relatable for my fans, and what better than a break-up song talking about your relationship going downhill - or ‘southbound’”.

“I think we're going to keep [First Dance] as a standalone EP, and then down the road, go into an album. Probably release a few singles in between, and then go into a bigger project”.

“I definitely had confidence in myself. I'm a confident kid, so I had confidence that it would do okay. But nowhere near [how it did]. I the love and support that it had - I think we had like 100,000 posts using that sound on TikTok. It's crazy, something stupid like that. I remember when I uploaded the first video, I was standing in my kitchen with my mom. I just filmed it. We didn't sit on it or anything. We just filmed it and posted it, it was pretty easy. It just blew up. We were like, ‘No way!’

It was so surreal, and it was super cool. I wish I could relive it again, because it was such a cool moment, releasing my first song. Every artist wants to release a song, so getting to do that at such a young age, it's one of the coolest experiences of my life”.

“I grew up singing in church, and the gospel is a very, very, very big part of my life, so I like to incorporate it into my music as much as I can. I know I can't do it on every song, but every now and then, I really like to incorporate it, kind of like on ‘God Talkin’”.

“I love John Mayer. I love Justin Bieber. I love Morgan Wallen, of course. I love... this one's so strange...but Shenandoah. That's a dream collab for me, 100%. I performed ‘Two Dozen Roses’ at every show last tour. Those are just a few. But I mean, there are so many great artists out there. Benson Boone - I love him. He's great. I'll give you one more - Michael Bublé. See what I'm saying? It's all over the place!”

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