“You're Not Going to Dull My Edges”: Warren Zeiders Wants to Become One of The Greats - and He Doesn't Care Who Knows It

It's always felt like a very British trait to feel embarrassed about our ambitions, with modesty and self-deprecation heralded above confidence and self-belief. When someone states any kind of outlandish aim, they're often the subject of ridicule - even if that ridicule is masking a sense of envy. Now, this seems to be catching on in the US.

When Timothée Chalamet accepted his SAG Award for A Complete Unknown last month, his declaration that he is “in pursuit of greatness” - a sentiment he had also expressed on Theo Von's This Past Weekend earlier in the year - drew a wave of backlash.

Hollywood is one of the most competitive industries out there, but Heaven forbid anyone actually say they wanted to win the award in their speech. Now, the standard is to feign surprise, make a mawkish comment about everyone being a winner, and then give the obligatory shout-out to Beyoncé for, well, being Beyoncé.

Warren Zeiders might not be fighting for Best Actor at the Oscars, but he finds himself in an equally competitive arena - the contemporary country music industry. Nashville generally has a reputation for being uber pally and friendly, with artists all raising each other up and joshing around at the awards shows, not really caring who wins.

Zeiders, however, is lifting the veil on the fact that, at the end of the day, country music is a dog-eat-dog world - and he's determined to cement himself in the upper echelon.

“Look at what happened with Timothée Chalamet at the awards show when he said he wanted to be one of the best”, Warren Zeiders highlights, “And he got pushed back”.

Zeiders dropped his deluxe Relapse, Lies & Betrayal project last week, with the record boasting hits such as ‘Relapse’, ‘You For a Reason’ and ‘Can a Heart Take’. It finds the country prodigy doubling down on the stormy, atmospheric feel of his chart-topping anthem, ‘Pretty Little Poison’, while also exploring a more built-out sound, particularly compared to the sparse, acoustic ambience of 2022's 717 Tapes.

Since bursting onto the scene during lockdown, when his video of ‘Ride the Lightning’ went viral courtesy of his charismatic, gravelly delivery and his dark, brooding style, Warren Zeiders has established himself as one of country music's stars-in-waiting.

What sets the Pennsylvania native apart from his peers is that he isn't afraid to admit just how high he wants to soar, and how hard he's had to work to make it to this point, “I went from being in college posting videos on social media during the pandemic, to then being baptised by fire, being thrown into the ring of, ‘Hey, you've never played live shows before, but let's go ahead and put a tour on-sale. Let's put you in three days of rehearsals, and let's go out and play shows. Now we're going full band - meet your band-mates. You're going in a 15 passenger van. You're gonna go out on the road...’ Everything I've been able to achieve and accomplish, it does not happen on its own. You don't become a Tom Brady or Kobe Bryant - you don't become a one of the greats - by it just happening on its own”.

He expands, “I am so fortunate and blessed to do what I do. But you don't wake up every single day and be like, ‘Oh man, I get to do this’. Like, there are hard days and there are days where it's a battle. But it's having that mindset of, ‘Okay, I'm grateful’”.

Warren Zeiders cites his willingness to be unapologetically authentic and true to himself as one of the reasons why he has gained popularity online, “I do have an edge, and I do not care - you're not going to dull my edges. I am who I am. Love me or hate me. I'm authentically me at the end of the day, and that's why I've broken through on social media, because we're living in a digital age where people hide behind a screen and we portray ourselves in a certain way. People want the real stuff”.

The ‘Without You’ crooner ensures all aspects of his brand remain aligned by keeping tabs on everything, from social media videos to the packaging of his vinyl, “The greats don't let on how hard they work...I run my socials, it's not a socials team running my socials for me. It's my hand on the pulse. It's me building this record top to bottom, my brain-child, from imaging to branding, to my car being on the cover, to the speedometer on my car being on the stickers for fans, or the CD being the tire of my Mustang that's on the cover. I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff”.

“Anything in life worth doing is going to be hard”, Zeiders goes on, “That's why people fall off, because this is a hard thing to do. This is a one in a couple million chance, and I put everything I have into it. That is why I'm not afraid to show my edge, I'm not afraid to show my competitive nature. I am here to leave my mark and the stamp of my name on country music, and I want to be one of the greats. I want to be playing A-list arenas in the next couple of years. I want to play stadiums one day”.

Given Warren Zeiders meteroic ascent, and the fact that Relapse, Lies & Betrayal - which extends 2024's Relapse project - has drawn plaudits from across the country space, you can't help but feel he will succeed in his mission to emulate the stadium-filling success of today's greats, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Zach Bryan.

Relapse, Lies & Betrayal is laced with visceral emotion, with Zeiders nimbly combining the drive for radio-friendly earworms with the desire to really say something in his music.

And perhaps this is the key reason - more so than his attention to detail, his business acumen, his carefully curated aesthetic and his distinctive vocals - why Warren Zeiders has a shot at writing his name in country history. Five years into this whirlwind journey, he remains committed to being sincerely, unashamedly himself.

In addition, Warren Zeiders delved into why he wanted to expand Relapse into a deluxe album, the inspiration behind his Lanie Gardner duet, ‘Love in Letting Go‘, and more:

“The first part of the project had acoustic songs that are an ode to what got me started in this scene, which is a reflection of The 717 Tapes, the first project I'd ever put out. A lot of them were demos. Then you have some of this other stuff that I like to say is a Pretty Little Poison 2.0, Reimagined. This stuff could fit on Pretty Little Poison.

The album is what I went through this year with the sound that people loved from that record, while exploring a new sound I've found over the past year, like ‘Relapse’, ‘Betrayal’, ‘Lies’, ‘Crying Whiskey’, ‘Bad’ and ‘Without You’. I feel like I was able to say a good amount on the first project that came out for Relapse. But you can say more when you go from 10 songs to 20-plus songs, when it's all said and done”.

“It's my first ever duet. That was the one song on this record that I actually cried writing. I wrote it as a duet, and the one writer on that song with me, we wrote it on a retreat in Miami, she cut vocals on it when we recorded the demo, and I absolutely fell in love. I was like, ‘This must be a duet’. So it was just going through and finding the right person that could fit that tonality and sentiment that I wanted to convey on the song. Lanie crushed it. She did a good job on it. I was thoroughly pleased when I got the final mix back when I was over in Europe on my tour”.

“It was easy and it wasn't. This album was originally going to be called Death of a Cowboy. But my current Country Radio single is ‘Relapse’, and I just got done with my Relapse Tour over in Europe and the UK. Hence the Relapse project, and now that I was adding on to that to finish the album, you have Relapse, Lies & Betrayal.

A lot of it was me and my team just kind of combing through the music and asking, ‘How do we want to portray the story unfolding as people listen through this record?’ The reality is that when it comes to tracklisting and telling a story through that, it's becoming less and less prevalent in the modern age, because everything is so single-based and focussed on what's going viral on socials. So you can tell a story through the tracklisting as much as you can, but you also want to keep those key singles at the top to get those streaming numbers up on those heavy streamers and those songs that have a massive light on them. It's a balance”.

“It's definitely a bob and weave. As much as I want it to be, not every song I write is going to be a massive hit. There's no rhyme or reason sometimes, for what goes viral and for what truly connects and resonates and gets through to people. You could have a song that means everything to you, and it might not go viral on social media. It might not hit the correct audience or the right demographic, and that doesn't mean it's a bad song. It's just the world we live in right now.

But I have given and will continue to give a life to every single one of these songs, to see how they can reach an audience and how they can connect and resonate in a multitude of different marketing strategies that I will continue to brainstorm on”.

“I always joke around and say, ‘This is not a career. This is a lifestyle’. My brain is never turned off. I'm always thinking about the next thing, always editing, going to bed, picking my phone up and editing something, or having an idea while scrolling through TikTok or Instagram and seeing something that inspires me and saving it.

Unfortunately - slash fortunately - there is really no off-switch for me, because the iron is hot, man, and I'm going to continue striking. I have such a great platform and I'm in such a great position right now, that I need to take hold of it and keep running full-steam ahead. I've got fans that are hungry. I've got the demand for it, and God has given me an awesome position to use my platform for good. It's a 365, 24/7 for me, man, and there's no off-and-on-button I can push. I'm always working”.

Relapse, Lies & Betrayal is out now on all platforms via Warner Records

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