During the 13th season of American Idol, a 15-year-old singer-songwriter named Briston Maroney raspily belted the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr., and Keith Urban, and in my recap of that episode, I compared Maroney to Jack White. Eight years later, Maroney actually went on tour opening for Jack White. And 11 years later, he released his third full-length album, Jimmy, and visited Licorice Pizza Records to chat with me and answer questions from his fans, most of whom didn’t even seem to remember him from the show.
During our fun conversation, we discussed who the real “Jimmy” is; how this semi-concept album is Maroney’s “attempt to try to understand [his] place” between his two hometowns (Knoxville, Tenn, and Amelia Island, Fla.); and how his new psych-rock LP was inspired by the “weird-ass behavior” of the rock ‘n’ roll relatives who made him “feel like I could be who I wanted to be.” But of course, we also talked about his now-distant Idol memories, including the “Mumford & Sons cosplay” he wore for his audition; how his main incentive for auditioning was “I didn’t have to go to school that day”; the “earth-shattering” Hollywood Week cover of Lorde’s “Royals” that he now self-deprecatingly calls “one of the hardest rewatches” of his life; and how his core memory of his Idol journey was his “fierce” and protective “GOAT” mother “fighting with all the other moms.”
Maroney also laughingly recalled finding out about his top 30 elimination, right before the Season 13 live shows, from a tweet. “Somebody leaked it. I found it on my iPod Touch, dude, and I came in and I was trying not to cry. I was like, ‘Dad, I saw something on Twitter! Come here!’ … It was actually a huge deal and that was a kind of lessened of the blow, because it became really entertaining seeing the American Idol people all pull out their walkie-talkies: ‘There’s a bug in the building!’ They took it very seriously.”
Obviously, it all worked out. Within a year of being on Idol, Maroney was self-releasing his first EP, during the “glory days of GarageBand” when he’d “come home from school, crush a bowl of SpaghettiOs,” and record for hours. “You could just upload a song for $10 to the website, so I would save all my pennies and just release songs. It was some of the best memories of my life,” he said. And when he eventually landed a major-label deal, with Atlantic Records, that was another amusing example of a seeming setback leading to a new, better opportunity. Apparently Maroney can sometimes get what he wants, just not in the way he expected.
“It’s actually kind of a fun story,” said Maroney, although his plot-twisting tale began unexpectedly somberly. “So, I had moved back in with my mom. I went to rehab when I was like 20, so before I could even legally drink alcohol, I’d already crossed that one off the list. And so, I moved back in with my folks and I was pretty down-and-out. I’d spent all my money on making the couple EPs that I had put out at the time and was pretty directionless. But I knew I wanted to play shows and play music, so I played a lot of house shows. … And I got a bit of a suspicious email from a person that worked at a label that wanted to come out and see a show. I wasn’t familiar with the label, I’d never interacted with this person, but at the time I was like, ‘There is no chance this could go poorly!’
“So, I booked the show in Nashville with some friends of mine. I made the drive up from Florida to Nashville to play the show. I drove 12 hours or whatever. I’m setting up with soundcheck, I’m all pumped that this label person is going to come to the show, and then I get a text right before I played the set and he was like, ‘Family emergency. Can’t make the show.’ And there were maybe only five other people there. I was devastated, just trying to smoke angry cigarettes, but taking one puff and then being real angsty about it. I played the set and I was pretty bummed.”
But then, that plot-twist came. “I went outside and I remember very vividly looking at the ground and this person came up and was like, ‘Hey man, I really, really enjoyed the set.’ And I was in full-on Charlie Brown mode. I couldn’t even lift my head up,” recalled Maroney. “It was not a great vibe to this individual. And then he kept walking on. Then one of my friends who was at the show came up to me and was like, ‘Dude, how do you know that guy?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. He just came up and said he liked the set.’ He was like, ‘That guy works for Atlantic Records.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I was just a huge dick to him,’ basically. So, I was double-devastated. But a couple days later, that person that I talked to got my phone number and texted me and was like, ‘I work at this label. I just started working here. I would love to talk about doing a record deal.’ And so, in the end, it all came back around. I’m giving myself chills right now.”
The mystery A&R man who’d initially contacted Maroney never got back in touch. Maroney is now pretty sure that the supposed talent scout “was definitely just a bot on the internet; there’s a 90 percent chance that that was just not a real person,” and that the label he’d set up that Nashville showcase for in the first place didn’t even exist. “I’m sure if I looked back, it was a name that was so obviously not a record label, like ‘Guitar Records’ or something,” he chuckled.
Maroney joked that he was worried that his Licorice Pizza Records in-store Q&A would be a similar disaster with only a few attendees, admitting to fans he was “so grateful you guys showed up. That’s so tight. We got here [early] and there was nobody in here [yet] and I was like, ‘Oh shit!’” But lots of people did show up, and during the event Maroney answered their questions, and mine, about his album artwork; dealing with anxiety and self-care on the road; how misplaced jealousy of other artists can be a “super-exhausting way to channel creative energy”; working with Chappel Roan collaborator Dan Nigro; what he learned from touring with Jack White, Wallows, and the Kooks; the amusingly misheard lyrics to “Bottom of the Ocean”; his Ween fandom (he even showed off his Ween tattoo!); and much, much more.
Watch Briston Maroney’s full Licorice Pizza interview in the Instagram video at the top of this page!
