Music means many things to Livingston. It’s an escape from the trials and tribulations of daily life. It’s a blank canvas for dreams to manifest upon.
Most of all, it’s proof that anything is possible.
Akin to building a rocket ship in a suburban backyard, the 21-year-old Denton, TX singer, songwriter, and producer creates handcrafted outlier pop teeming with big screen-worthy orchestration, arena-size ambition, open-hearted lyricism, and sky-high hooks. His words strike a deep chord, whether booming through your speakers or sung from the stage to a sold-out crowd. An uncanny ability to empower listeners to realize their potential has accelerated Livingston’s ascent as a world-building alt-pop music maverick in 2024.
His vision expands in widescreen on the Deluxe Edition of his breakthrough A Hometown Odyssey.
“Escapism has always driven my music,” he affirms. “In school, I retreated into so many places that weren’t necessarily grounded in the real world like video games, movies, and records. I loved anything that painted a larger picture. Over the last five years, I chipped away piece-by-piece to make a coherent story. A Hometown Odyssey required this time because it’s an album about growing up, leaving a smalltown, and discovering your potential—even when you’re...
Music means many things to Livingston. It’s an escape from the trials and tribulations of daily life. It’s a blank canvas for dreams to manifest upon.
Most of all, it’s proof that anything is possible.
Akin to building a rocket ship in a suburban backyard, the 21-year-old Denton, TX singer, songwriter, and producer creates handcrafted outlier pop teeming with big screen-worthy orchestration, arena-size ambition, open-hearted lyricism, and sky-high hooks. His words strike a deep chord, whether booming through your speakers or sung from the stage to a sold-out crowd. An uncanny ability to empower listeners to realize their potential has accelerated Livingston’s ascent as a world-building alt-pop music maverick in 2024.
His vision expands in widescreen on the Deluxe Edition of his breakthrough A Hometown Odyssey.
“Escapism has always driven my music,” he affirms. “In school, I retreated into so many places that weren’t necessarily grounded in the real world like video games, movies, and records. I loved anything that painted a larger picture. Over the last five years, I chipped away piece-by-piece to make a coherent story. A Hometown Odyssey required this time because it’s an album about growing up, leaving a smalltown, and discovering your potential—even when you’re surrounded by doubt and anxiety. There were years of experience, going through the motions, and finding answers to questions I’d asked in earlier songs. It birthed a record I’m so proud of.”
It’s also something he never imagined would ever happen…
As a kid, he felt a lot of love from his parents and two siblings, but he went through hell at school for “being different.” Despite ceaseless bullying and teachers who just didn’t understand, he found solace in the worlds of The Lord of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Marvel, as well as video games like Far Cry and Fortnite. Music offered a platform to tell his story under the influence of favorite records such as Stoney by Post Malone, Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots, A Night at the Opera by Queen, A Moment Apart by Odesza, and 2014 Forest Hills Drive by J. Cole. He endured his first heartbreak, weathered teenage loneliness, and poured his pain into a MacBook Pro, writing, producing, and performing music out of his childhood bedroom. At barely 17-years-old, he introduced himself to the masses with a set of debut EPs Lighthouse [2020] and An Unlikely Origin Story [2021]. Among various highlights, “Fairytale” resonated with 50 million-plus streams, and he collaborated with everyone from Macklemore to Louis The Child.
As it does in any good origin story, life twisted and turned, changing our hero.
In 2022, he was independent professionally and personally. He left his family for the first time and settled in Los Angeles. “I reached a ceiling of what I could achieve in Texas, and I needed to find a sensei in L.A. and get schooled by being around people who are better than me,” he notes. Throughout 2023, he wrote a staggering 250 songs.
“Moving away gave me a whole different perspective,” he says. “I started reminiscing on things from my childhood that felt insignificant at the time. I realized were a huge part of what made me who I am—whether it was my struggles with anxiety or the bullying. I couldn’t fit in and find my place. I took the words, phrases, and melodies that reminded me of that time and turned them into symphonic, cinematic music. I learned how to take the mundane and regular and find something brutally and primally emotional that reaches people on a deep level.”
That brings us to his debut album A Hometown Odyssey. Livingston may have quietly assembled the project with collaborators such as Rami Yacoub and Jake Torrey, but it made a loud impact. Originally released independently, the album shot up to #2 on the Spotify Album Debut UK Chart and #3 on the Spotify Album Debut US and Global Charts. Tracks like the stark piano-anchored ballad “Last Man Standing” and menacingly catchy alternative freakout of “Shadow” reacted with tens of millions of streams. The former debuted on various Spotify Global Viral 50 Charts, including in the US, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and more, while the latter was the #1 iTunes Global Song for over 24 hours upon release and peaked in the Top 20 on the Spotify US & Global Viral Charts. A collision of distorted guitars and big screen-worthy strings, “Symphony” trumpets a clarion call of hope for anyone who feels forgotten as he proclaims, “I make music from the silence, I make symphonies from pain.” Fittingly, Academy® Award winner J.K. Simmons sets the scene for A Hometown Odyssey on the “Introduction.”
As 2024 ramped up, he sold out his first-ever headline tour across North America and Europe, which included shows at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, Los Angeles’ Troubadour, London’s Scala, and more. Now, the Deluxe Edition of A Hometown Odyssey plunges audiences further into this living and breathing world. Keys tiptoe through glitchy claps on the single “Gravedigger.” Simultaneously, the dramatic dynamics of his voice transfix, “Go figure, go figure, I grew up to be the Gravedigger.”
“To me, ‘Gravedigger’ is unleashing the power from all of this time I wasted by fearing things that aren’t real,” he states. “Since it’s time I’ll never get back, I’ve often fallen into the trap of believing it was time wasted. When you can grab the darkest moment, wrap it up, and put all of that anger and rage into a song like ‘Gravedigger’, it justifies the time I spent worrying. I’m also not afraid of what I used to be afraid of.”
Ultimately, music is hope for Livingston.
“I’d love for you to listen to this and hear songs you feel like were written just for you,” he smiles. “I’m no different from anybody. I’m still just a kid from Texas who wants to take on the world.”
