Is Maddox Batson “Country Music’s Justin Bieber”?

Rolling Stone All Access

Rolling Stone

Music, Music Interviews, Music Commentary

4.0 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Taylor Swift to Tanya Tucker, country music has a rich history of child stars. Maddox Batson, at just 16, is the latest, drawing comparisons to a young Justin Bieber with his songs about middle-school crushes and country living. Maddox joins us in the Nashville Now cabin to talk about songwriting, social media, and the song he co-wrote for Lana Del Rey and Quavo. And for his already hardcore fans, he tells us if there really was a “girl in green.” It’s the future of country music, only on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now. Country is Here… Nashville is Now. Check out our Hear Now playlist on Spotify, updated weekly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody. Welcome to Rolling. Now, I'm your host, Senior Music Editor
0:11.8	Joseph Hudak. We're here in the Nashville Now cabin with our guest this week. His name is Maddox
0:17.7	Batson. Now, a lot of y'all may not know who that is yet, but if you're of a certain
0:23.2	age, your kids probably do. Maddox is on track to be, well, as someone described him, the Justin Bieber of
0:32.4	country music. His kid is really sharp. It was really kind of eye-opening for me to talk to someone who is so much younger than me,
0:42.9	so much younger than me, about his aspirations of country music and the success he's had so far.
0:50.3	It got us thinking a lot about country music's history of young artists, childhood stars,
0:57.4	whatever you want to call it.
0:58.6	We're going to get into all of that with Maddox, and let's just get right to it.
1:02.9	Let's welcome Maddox-Batson to the table, and we'll catch up with you all after the interview.
1:08.7	Coming up next, our interview with Maddox Battson.
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