In 2021, California native Chayce Beckham joined the lineage of artists whose talent captured viewers’ ears and hearts during his winning run on American Idol. But the narrow passageway from talent competition to bonafide star is littered with artists who never successfully made that transition.
Beckham is not among them — thanks to “23,” his newly minted, first Billboard Country Airplay No. 1 hit, which reached the chart pinnacle this past week (on the chart dated April 6). In the process, he joins an elite class of Idol winners to earn a Country Airplay No. 1, including Carrie Underwood, Scotty McCreery and Kelly Clarkson. Moreover, “23” was solo-written by Beckham; the song has become only the sixth song crafted a solo writer to hit No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in the past decade — and in the process, stakes his claim as not only a song interpreter, but an artist intent on telling his story in his own way.
“I’ve been working this song for a long time and it’s had a new life at radio,” he tells Billboard of “23.” “Just watching it open up to a whole new audience over the past year has been special.”
On Friday (April 5), he will build on his success with the release of his debut album, Bad for Me, via 19 Recordings/Wheelhouse Records/BMG.
“Over the last few years, I feel like just kind of put my head down and just kept trucking and put as much hard work into this as I could,” Beckham told Billboard. “I just wanted to create a record that I felt highlighted all the things I love in country music, like fiddles, guitars, mandolins, harmonies and storytelling.”
He co-wrote nine of the album’s 13 songs, with three of those nine compositions being solo writes. Many of the songs on the project, including the title track, as well as “Devil I’ve Been” and “Addicted and Clean” offer unflinching honesty, drawing from his own struggles just weeks prior to his American Idol audition. Those hardships included his grandfather’s death, his girlfriend ending the relationship, and the bustup of a former band during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beckham coped through heavy alcohol use, which led to a DUI and a near-fatal car accident in 2020.