NEW YORK (AP) — His is a Cinderella story.
Earlier than the large excursions and nation music award nominations, Bailey Zimmerman was rising up within the small city of Louisville, Illinois, working on the native meat processing plant and laying fuel pipeline. Then, in 2020, he determined to add movies of himself singing to social media — Black Stone Cherry’s “Stay,” and, later, an unique.
He rapidly garnered a fan base on TikTok. It wasn’t in a single day, nevertheless it was quick. Quickly, he inked a take care of Warner Music Nashville and launched his debut full-length, 2023’s “Religiously. The Album.” It peaked at No. 7 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart and was licensed two-times platinum by the Recording Business Affiliation of America. Now comes Friday, when he follows it up with a sophomore providing, “Different Night Same Rodeo.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Zimmerman, 25, tells The Related Press by means of a smile. “I randomly got into music in 2020, 2021, and I’d never sang before. I’d never wrote songs before.”
After “Religiously. The Album.” did properly — one thing he did not see coming — Zimmerman discovered himself making an attempt to recreate it whereas writing for his second album. “It just didn’t work,” he says. “I just found myself not really writing that great of songs because I’m trying to write other songs that have already been written.”
So, he took a step again, and requested himself: “What am I trying to do with my music? And what is the whole goal of this next album?” The reply was easy: He wished to inform tales from his life.
“You didn’t know what you were doing the first time. And you don’t know what you’re doing now,” he advised himself. “So just write songs that you love and try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to, you know, stories from things I’ve been through.”
On “Different Night Same Rodeo,” these tales are advised in big-hearted ballads (“Hell or High Water”), good time stomps (“New to Country”) and assorted collaborations, together with with nation star Luke Combs (“Backup Plan”), the rising pop voice the Child LAROI (“Lost”), and Diplo (“Ashes”). He is at all times been open to such eclectic collaborations, anchored in his raspy, charismatic tone — Zimmerman’s highest charting track to this point is “All The Way,” a hip-hop-country hybrid he options on with rapper BigXThaPlug.
For his second album, Zimmerman wished to verify he labored with artists he had true relationships with. For Combs, he knew the singer could be good for the fiery “Backup Plan” — he simply by no means thought he’d meet him. Then, Combs invited Zimmerman to carry out at his Hurricane Helene aid profit “Concert for Carolina.” They hit it off, and the remaining is historical past. The Child LAROI (“We’re like the same person,” Zimmerman says) and Diplo (“Sometimes things just feel like God’s plan,” he says) had been partnerships that additionally occurred organically.
“When I collaborate, I just want it to be a real friendship,” he says. “And I want it to feel real, because it comes across not real when it’s not.”
For an artist who describes himself as “dealing with a little bit of impostor syndrome,” he appears to know, at the very least intuitively, what works for himself and his followers.
“The main reason I write music is so people know they’re not alone and that I’ve been through the things that they’ve been through, too,” he says. “I think that’s what I started my whole career on, was people relating to me kind of ‘therapy writing,’” he says. “’Different Night Same Rodeo’ — it’s the fluctuation of life. It’s the ups and the downs, the mountains, the valleys, but we’re still on a good vibe.”
