Waylon Wyatt Talks Breakthrough Success & Bayker Blankenship Collab

Waylon Wyatt recently had a pretty good excuse for missing school: the 17-year old was on the road with Dwight Yoakam. “Just last week, I couldn’t make it to school on Thursday and Friday, because I was opening for Dwight. You know how crazy that seems?” the high school senior asks.

But Wyatt (whose full name is Waylon Wyatt Potter) is getting used to crazy moments since he began writing songs two years ago, influenced by alt-country artists such as Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan. The Hackett, Arkansas native has broken through thanks to songs including “Everything Under the Sun” (a song he says was inspired by “watching sunsets over a lake in my hometown”) and “Arkansas Diamond,” which lie at the intersection of folk, country and rock. “Arkansas Diamond” has earned more than 24 million Spotify streams, while “Everything Under the Sun” has reached over 12 million streams on the platform.

Today (Sept. 6), he and fellow newcomer (and “Maxed Out” singer) Bayker Blankenship have teamed up for the churning, heartland rock of “Jailbreak.”

“I found him on social media after he covered a song of mine, ‘Arkansas Diamond,’ and we reached out to each other,” Wyatt tells Billboard over Zoom. “We became friends and now we have a song we created and recorded together. It’s pretty wild.”

In August 2023, Wyatt signed a deal with Music Soup and Darkroom Records. Darkroom’s roster includes nine-time Grammy winner Billie Eilish, “Feel It” performer D4vd and DJ/music producer John Summit, with Wyatt becoming the label’s first country/Americana artist. “I found that more unique about [signing with Darkroom Records] was they don’t have [a country/Americana artist], so maybe I could give it to them,” he says.

He is quick to credit Darkroom’s unconventional method of reaching out to him during several other labels also expressing interest.   “I worked for my dad’s construction business and in one of my TikTok videos, I was wearing the company’s hat. Darkroom DM’d me, but also called my dad’s business, got ahold of his secretary, and then scheduled a Zoom meeting,” Wyatt recalls. “It all kind of kicked off from there.”

In addition to artists such as Bryan and Childers, Wyatt counts some of his biggest influences as pioneering country artists popular way before he was born, including Waylon Jennings, Don Williams and Hank Williams, Sr. “I actually prefer [the music of] Hank Williams, Sr. over Hank Williams Jr. — I might get hate off that, I don’t know,” he says.

Though he sounds surefooted in his blend of rugged acoustic country/rock, Wyatt says he’s dabbled in different sounds.

“I’ve wanted to do all kinds of singing since I was 12 or so. I had my little rap phase where I was big on Eminem — the first song I probably ever learned by him was ‘Lose Yourself,’” he explains. “I actually wrote some raps, too; I wouldn’t say they were the best, but it was trial and error. But just all these years of finding myself musically, it’s been great.”

He followed his breakthrough songs in July with the seven-song, acoustic-driven EP Til The Sun Goes Down, a project he wrote and recorded on his own (the project was released via Music Soup/Darkroom). The lo-fi effort features his gritty voice backed by only an acoustic guitar, with songs including “Back to Then,” “Arkansas Diamond,” “Phoning Heaven” and “Riches to Rags.”

“There was no overproduction or anything on these songs,” Wyatt says. “I didn’t imagine it being a bigger body of work, but as I progressed through ’em, I was like, ‘All these songs that I wrote so far, they could run together.’ They’re all based out of the same stuff. All of them are very relatable pieces of work.”

Wyatt’s hometown of Hackett has just 800 people, making for a close-knit community, including his schoolmates, who are proud of his career breakthrough. “A lot of them don’t know how to process it because I’ve grown up with them and it’s a small school. My hometown is small, so I know pretty much every face around here. But they’ve been so supportive,” he says.

Wyatt, who is booked by Wasserman, is set to perform during AmericanaFest this year, before making his Stagecoach Festival debut in 2025. But he’s also balancing music with completing his senior year of high school. “My parents never did go to college or anything,” he says, “but they are big on [my] finishing the school year out.”

Ahead, he says he would love to release another project, one that “would probably include a little more production than just guitar. And more fiddle, because I love hearing fiddle.”