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The first attempt at this interview with Cameron Whitcomb was halted, as he, in line at the car wash with his trusted pup James in the front seat, had his attention diverted by the station attendant’s inclination for an extended chat about dogs. Whitcomb, too kind and gracious to break away from the conversation, repeatedly glanced back at the Zoom screen on his cell phone, mouthing, “Sorry!!” We successfully followed up a week later (and, yes, James was present).

 Naturally, Whitcomb’s Canadian goodwill was front and center in this instance, as it is across his public-facing appearances. His vibrant, though dubious, personality shines through in conversation, casually dropping expletives stone-faced impressions with a hearty laugh and a wide grin. 

On the other side of the coin, his music paints a contrasting picture. The material, from releases such as “Quitter” and “Wreckage” off his 2024 EP Quitter to his most recent, including “Hundred Mile High” and “Options,” relays stories of a young man overcoming mental and emotional hardship, asking for forgiveness from those around him, and searching for ways to better himself.

One of Spotify’s Top Artists to Watch for 2025, Whitcomb has quickly risen from the grind of a blue-collar pipeline tradesman to the American Idol stage, and now to the top of the ranks of country music’s rapidly expanding freshman class with songs like “Medusa,” “The Devil I’ve Seen,” and latest release “Options”, connecting with audiences in ways he never thought possible. Sporting an impressively wide and permeant vocal range, often spiked with grit and gravel, Whitcomb is an effecting vocalist. Ultimately, he is an artist who rejects the notion that his past will define him, and one looking to provide relief for those listening enduring their own trials and tribulations. 

OnesToWatch: You’re the first artist from this current iteration of Idol that I’ve talked to. How long did it take you to realize, after the fact, that it wasn’t the machine you may have expected it to be?

Cameron Whitcomb: As soon as I got home. As soon as I got off the flight. I sat around for a week and was like, “Oh fuck… I’m NOT famous. Oh shit… I don’t have any money. Oh fuck, I don’t have any contacts in Canada and I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to play guitar, I don’t know how to write songs, I have absolutely no clue.” So, I had to go home and learn how to play guitar. I sulked around for a week or two. I booked my own little shows playing at people’s weddings and birthday parties… this, that, and whatever else. I’d go, and… it was a fuckin nightmare at the start. I think what Idol did for me was show me that there was more to my life than digging holes. It’s a cool show, but unless you run with it and put in the work, it’s a nothing thing. Everything is after the fact. I’m really grateful for the opportunity, because if it wasn’t for that show, I would have never pursued this as a career by any means. The fact that I’m able to do this is extremely special. 

So, the way that you scored collaborators and people working with you after the fact was just grinding on your own, or getting out there and finding people online? 

All the contacts I’d made on the show lived in the United States. A big part of it for me was like, “I’m gonna keep posting, I’m gonna keep workin’ my ass off and tryin’ my best.” I got kicked off in May [of ‘22], so I spent the entire summer doing music, ran out of money, and had to go back to my job at the pipeline after I’d quit to go do Idol. I thought I’d failed… but I just kept posting on social media, got home after work and wrote songs. I’d post songs and covers every day. Once I quit my job again, I started writing my original music. That’s about the same time I got sober. I got clean and just kept working at it. I found my niche writing about things that really mattered to me, like my history with addiction and my process through recovery. I could really be honest about those things, and they meant a lot to me. That’s where things started to take off… when people started to find solace in, and relate to, some of the things I was saying.  

You’ve said you’re in a phase of taking accountability. Are you at least considering being sympathetic towards yourself when you’re writing these songs about your past and how you’ve grown from it? 

The first step to anything is realizing you have a problem, or realizing who you are and what you’re doing, and how it affects the people around you. I think understanding and growing from that is how we grow as people. I have empathy for who I was, but, at the end of the day, you have to realize that, a lot of the time, it’s unacceptable. I’m still growing and learning. Recovery is kind of an endless process. It’s a tricky process, but it’s a rewarding process. If I hadn’t gotten clean, I’d probably be workin’ at a pipeline. Miserable, still doing drugs, and pissed off. It’s crazy how much your life can change when you start taking accountability and trying to grow as a human being. Finding the things keeping you back and getting rid of them. A lot of it is environmental. When I got clean, I lost all my friends, all the people I liked hanging out with. I found myself anxious, kind of a loner. Now, I’ve grown to enjoy peace and quiet. Being alone, being with myself. 

Were songs like “Wreckage” and “Quitter” the precipice for this accountability stage, or were they direct results of it? 

I think they’re just songs that, I mean… Yeah, absolutely. 

I think those are prime examples of taking accountability, right? I find myself trying to steer away from writing songs about addiction… try to change things up. I’ve done that a bit, but if I bring it back to home, I think the most genuine and honest songs come from exactly how I feel, and how I felt, and things that are right with me. Those are the ones that come out the most honest, and the best sounding. 

Do you find that there is any correlation between your music and the west coast rap you’ve said you love? Music about personal struggles and overcoming the odds. Even though it’s a very different world, are you pulling from any of those influences, maybe not sonically, but thematically? 

Maybe! I’ve always resonated the most with music that speaks about things that really matter. Brutally honest things, no matter how disgusting it is to hear. I grew up on west coast Canadian rap music like Snak The Ripper, Merkules, Madchild. That’s the music I’ve gravitated towards… where I can really paint the picture in my head, then I’ll beat around the bush. I’ve always really enjoyed listening to that. I like writing that. I mean, fuck, anyone can write a song about, [In his most exaggerated country twang, sings,] “Beerrrrrr, trucks, and dirt. And… dirt, and trucks, and more dirt. And we go to the barrrrr, and I met a girl, yeahhhh…” You know, that stuff is cool. A lot of it can sound really great. I never resonated with that. It doesn’t speak to me. When you hear Marshall Mathers … The Slim Shady LP, he’s talkin’ about some of the most graphic, disgusting things. It paints such a cool picture in your head. It’s incredible. I’ve always been in love with that. 

Is there any modern rap you’re a fan of? 

I really like WESTSIDE BOOGIE… there’s nobody like him. 

In your bridges, you usually jump down an octave from where your choruses are. You bring it to a softer place. Do you prefer to save that area of your voice for a specific reason, or do you just feel more comfortable in your secret tenor range? 

I think both of those tones of my voice can be really special in different ways. When I really get low, and I really say something that matters… in a low, whispery voice, I think that can be just as powerful as when I fuckin belt out. Those dynamics can be really powerful… so I always try to take people on a ride, instead of just having it be one solid place the whole tune. 

The way your tone sounds on the bridge of “Medusa,” “And I don’t even want you back, even though you’re all I have. My Medusa, I could use her ‘til I crumble and I crack,” is so gorgeous. I wish you’d done a full chorus of that. It’s so crisp down there. 

Same thing with “Hundred Mile High.” [Speaks lyrics] “Thickets thorn the briar patch. A winter storm, the fire’s ash. I contemplate my choices knowin’ damn well I ain’t fine.” I LOVE that part of the song, cause it brings it RIGHT back down. 

Do you have any other songs… that are in the same textbook traditional country lane as “The Devil I’ve Seen”? That is, probably, the most straight-down-the-line country song you’ve done. It was like the musical equivalent of the Brett Favre Wrangler jeans commercial. 

Yeah, totally. I haven’t done ANY more songs like that. I wrote this blues one the other day that was a little “Tennessee Whiskey.” But, as far as like, [Once again, in his exaggerated country twang,] “You driveeee a Ford F-150?” We haven’t done any of that. There’s the evolution, you know? We were doin’ songs like that, and then we started doin’ songs like “Love Myself” and then “Quitter,” a little bit more country. As we progress into things, it’s starting to sound less and less country. I feel like, no matter what, whatever song I write… we’re gonna produce it the way that it should sound. 

So, you have some traditional blues, you’ve got some delta blues… are you trying to expand your reach within blues, and country, and folk? 

Every time we get into the studio, we get to do whatever we want. There’s no putting us in a box. We get to write and say whatever we want, and produce it however we want. If it works, it works. If it don’t, I’ma just write another one. That freedom is essential to the creativity behind the music. If I get boxed in, it’s not good. Might as well write with AI, you know? It’s lame. 

Have the streaming numbers for songs like “Medusa” and “Hundred Mile High” made you reconsider your next steps of what you’re going to put out? 

I’m just going to keep writing songs that I think sound good to me, feel really good and honest. If one hits, then great. If it don’t hit, I’m just glad I got it out there. Fuck, I’d still be making music if 2000 people were listening. There’s definitely strategy on how we release music… if it were up to me, I’d probably just release it and not tell anyone. 

When you were writing “Medusa,” did you look into the mythology of that concept or character? 

[Laughs] Not really! I knew that she was a she, and that she turned people into stone. The rest of it… it just ended up being a cool hook, cool imagery. The whole song is kind of my love song to drugs… it’s like, “I love you, and I think about you, but I can’t be with you. You’ll just kill me.” People can interpret it however they want… but, for me, I felt free to say exactly what I wanted to say, even if a lot of it didn’t even make sense. It made sense to me, and I believed in it. 

Now in “Options,” you’ve got the line, “I got options… long as that devil on my shoulder and my angel keep talking.” That seems like a focus lyric… it’s the balance that gets blurred when the lighter side comes out on top of the dark. How important do you think it is for people to have that reminder? That there’s always another choice? 

The whole song came to me from a dream I’ve been havin’ for a long time… ever since I got sober. It’s like, “Fuck, I’m gonna be 10 years sober and I’m gonna take off in a private jet and head to the Yukon. Bring an ounce of blow and a flat of whiskey and get weird for like… a fuckin week.” I’ll never do it, but the idea that I’M in control, and the idea that what my life will be whatever I make it, is a big reason why I’m able to stay sober. HAVING these options instead of feeling like you’re trapped. I GET to be sober. I GET to make these choices. The whole song, if you listen to the words, is just painting this picture of exactly showing up to that fuckin cabin way out in the Yukon, you know? [Speaks lyrics] “Invite my skeletons to come on in. With their hollow eyes and awful itch, and we’re chewin’ through the air to tell a story.” That imagery has been in my head for a while now, and I think we executed it perfectly. I’ve wanted to write a song about it for a long time, just never did it right. I think this is the one. 

Do you not think you were ready to write that song, or that you couldn’t write it? 

I don’t think there was anything preventing me from writing the song, but I think having the time to really think it out, spend the day writing it, and taking it gently was huge. All the ideas, and lines were there, it was just putting it together. 

Cameron Whitcomb – 2025 Tour Dates

3/19 – Raleigh, NC – Lincoln Theatre

3/20 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry 

3/21 – Pittsburgh, PA – Spirit Hall (SOLD OUT)

3/22 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Soundstage

3/24 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom 

3/26 – Portland, ME – State Theatre 

3/27 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair (SOLD OUT)

3/28 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom (SOLD OUT)

3/29 – Cleveland, OH – The Roxy at Mahall’s (SOLD OUT)

3/31 – Pittsburgh, PA – Spirit Hall (SOLD OUT)

4/2 – Oxford, OH – Brick Street Bar 

4/3 – Milwaukee, WI – Vivarium (SOLD OUT) 

4/4 – Indianapolis, iN – HI-FI Indy (SOLD OUT)

4/5 – Detroit, MI – The El Club (SOLD OUT)

4/9 – St. Louis, MO – Old Rock House 

4/10 – Chattanooga, TN – The Barrelhouse Ballroom (SOLD OUT)

4/11 – Winterville, GA – Georgia Rodeo 

4/12 – Auburn, AL – The Auburn Rodeo 

(OPENING FOR SAM BARBER)

4/22 – Perth, Australia – Freo.Social (SOLD OUT)

4/23 - Perth, Australia – Freo.Social (SOLD OUT)

4/25 – Adelaide, Australia – Lion Arts Factory (SOLD OUT)

4/26 – Melbourne, Australia – Forum Theatre (SOLD OUT)

4/29 – Sydney, Australia – Roundhouse (SOLD OUT)

4/30 – Sydney, Australia – Roundhouse 

5/1 – Brisbane, Australia – The Fortitude Music Hall (SOLD OUT)