Although eight singers recently received Grammy nominations for best new artist, few of them likely feel they’re actually new to the music industry.
Take pop singer Sabrina Carpenter or country artist Shaboozey, for example.
Carpenter — who had her initial breakthrough starring in “Girl Meets World” on the Disney Channel — had five albums under her belt before her chart-topping “Short n’ Sweet” album, which this year gave the singer her first No. 1 hit.
Shaboozey, meanwhile, released his first single in 2014 and his debut album in 2018 before his smash hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” launched him to fame this year.
But there’s at least one singer in the best new artist category who is really new to music — so new, in fact, that it was only around five years ago that he even discovered he could sing.
Shortly after that discovery, in 2021, an 18-year-old Benson Boone decided to try his luck on “American Idol.” But the teenager — who “Idol” judge Katy Perry declared a potential winner — ended up forgoing the competition and also dropped out of BYU-Idaho to pursue music on his own terms.
Now, three years later, Boone has a smash hit and is up for a Grammy.
Here’s a look at the singer’s improbable rise to fame.
Benson Boone discovers his voice
While in high school, Boone’s friend asked him to play piano in their school’s battle of the bands. The teenager had grown up playing a little and loved listening to a wide range of artists — including Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel and Adele — but he didn’t really understand the scope of his musical abilities until he wound up filling in as the singer at the last minute after the original singer quit.
“We didn’t have a singer and my friend said I should sing and I was like, ‘Dude, I never sang before,’” Boone previously told the Everett Herald.
He pushed through his hesitation and decided to take the stage to sing — much to his parents’ surprise.
“My husband and I hadn’t heard him sing ever really,” Boone’s mother told the Everett Herald. “He told us he was going to do it and we were like, ‘Oh, OK, alright, this should be interesting.’
“When we went, our jaws dropped.”
In an interview with MTV, Boone recalled how his mother was in the front row during his performance, bawling her eyes out. Even if he hadn’t ended up winning the battle of the bands — which he did — it still would’ve been one of his favorite moments because of the life-altering self-discovery.
Up until that point, Boone, who was a competitive diver and loves the outdoors, figured his life would go in that direction.
“I went out on stage and I started singing, and my voice kind of just came out of me. It’s just like I unlocked something I didn’t know I had,” he told MTV. “And I stopped, like, halfway through the first verse and just looked around, and I was so shocked that I had just sang. ... It was, like, the best feeling of my life.”
Benson Boone auditions for ‘American Idol’
After that battle of the bands performance, Boone began posting music clips on TikTok and gaining traction — enough to catch the eyes of “American Idol” producers.
Unlike many who audition for the show, Boone hadn’t grown up watching “Idol” and didn’t have much of a connection to it, but it was an experience he was interested in trying. And the opportunity came around the time he took a break from college after a semester at BYU-Idaho in an effort to focus more on music, per the Everett Herald.
The teenager seemed a bit in disbelief when he entered the “American Idol” audition room where music superstars Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan were sitting at a table.
Boone was wide-eyed as he stood before the judges, just moments away from performing for a spot in the reality competition that helped to launch the careers of superstars like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and David Archuleta. He told the judges that he had only started singing about a year earlier.
“I didn’t know I could sing before a year ago,” he said. “It’s become a really big passion of mine, really quickly.”
And then he walked over to the piano, where he fidgeted with the microphone and asked if he was close enough before he started to sing Aidan Martin’s “Punchline.” It only took a few notes before the “Idol” judges seemed in even more disbelief than Boone.
Perry, especially, seemed to have a hard time believing Boone didn’t grow up singing or had that much performing experience. But Boone doubled down and said no one in his family sings and it’s not something he ever thought he could do.
Richie called Boone’s voice “natural talent” and Bryan called it “a true gift,” but it was Perry who offered up the boldest declaration.
“They’re gonna swoon over Benson Boone,” she said. “I see you winning ‘American Idol’ if you want to.”
“That is the biggest compliment I’ve ever got,” Boone responded. “Thank you.”
But Boone’s time in the competition was short-lived — because in the end, he really didn’t want to win.
Why Benson Boone quit ‘American Idol’
While Boone didn’t have anything negative to say about “American Idol,” he told the Los Angeles-area radio station 104.3 MYfm that he didn’t really connect with it.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to do music,” he said. “If I ended up going far on the show I didn’t want to be there and be like ‘Well, I don’t want to do music so why am I here?’ I just didn’t feel like I deserved to be there, really, so I stepped away to kind of figure out if I wanted to actually do it.”
And if he did decide to pursue a career in music, Boone didn’t want to be defined — or restricted — by “American Idol.”
“I don’t want people to be like, ‘Oh, Benson Boone, ‘American Idol’ blew him up. Like, that’s where he comes from. No,” he said during an appearance on “The Zach Sang Show.” I want to be Benson Boone ‘cause I write smash hits and they love my music. ... I just didn’t want that label on me.”
Boone praised his parents for supporting him in his decision to quit “Idol” in an attempt to carve his own path — even if they didn’t completely understand it at the time.
“I think I”m a big risk-taker,” he said on “The Zach Sang Show.” “And that’s how I’ve been my whole life. ... I feel the thrill of not knowing fully how something’s going to go. ... And they just believed in me and I think it was because they believed in me that I really thought I could do it.”
Success after ‘American Idol’
Not long after “Idol,” Boone’s TikTok videos caught the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, who provided some mentorship and signed the young singer to his label, Night Street Records.
“We sign artists so rarely at Night Street — it was one of those moments where you know you have no choice,” Reynolds told Billboard at the time of the record deal. “That’s how I felt when I first sat in a recording booth with Benson. I’m excited for the world to get to know him the way I have these last months.”
Boone released his debut single, “Ghost Town,” in the fall of 2021. Two EPs followed, and then the singer released his debut album, “Fireworks & Rollerblades” — which features the international No. 1 hit “Beautiful Things.”
The music video for the song — which was filmed near St. George, Utah, per Grammy.com — won the MTV Video Music award for best alternative music video and has more than 370 million views on YouTube.
When he released “Fireworks & Rollerblades” in April, Boone, 22, embarked on a world tour that involved his first-ever arena show, held at the Maverik Center in West Valley City, Utah.
“Probably the most emotional day of my life. I’m still wondering if this show even happened. Our first arena,” Boone shared on Instagram following the show in late April. “Thank you for crying with me, singing with me, laughing with me, feeling with me. I promise you this is just the start of it, and I ain’t slowin down till these tires are burned into the street.”
A couple of months later, he took the stage at Wembley Stadium, opening for Taylor Swift at the superstar’s London stop on the Eras Tour.
Now Boone continues his world tour, which will take him to South Korea, Australia and New Zealand through late January, according to his website.
And a few days after that he’ll have a shot at snagging his first Grammy.
Boone set his sights on turning music into a career, and dreamed of world tours and sold-out crowds, but he never imagined he’d get there — or at least get there so fast. And even before “Beautiful Things” or the Grammy nod, his rapid rise to fame already felt surreal.
“Five years ago, I did not even know I could sing. My plan was to play a professional sport, or be an architect, or interior designer,” he told the pop culture site Notion in 2022. “So, if my younger self could see me now, they wouldn’t believe it. I would be so confused.”