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Chayce Beckham on His Musical Interests & Coming Full Circle Back to Country

Chayce Beckham went through a reggae phase before his country rise. Listen to his interview with Billboard's Behind the Setlist podcast.

1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart with “23,” he was a teenager growing up in inland Southern California with varied and diverse musical interests. The American Idol season 19 winner, who cites outlaw country legends Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard as influences, even went through a reggae phase — “around the same time I started smoking weed,” he tells Billboard ’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “I just really branched out and looked for anything and everything,” says Beckham, who once sang and played guitar in The Sinking Sailors, a four-piece with a Caribbean-meets-skater sound not unlike quintessential Southern California band Sublime.

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