On a sunny April afternoon, Bailey Zimmerman is eager to sit down and chat. The velvet couch and city view inside the office of Warner Music Nashville contrast his casual vibe — ripped skinny jeans, a backwards ballcap and a Justin Bieber tour shirt — but he doesn't seem fazed by the glitz. Instead, the 23-year-old singer kicks back and quips, "I don't even know what we're gonna talk about."

While his naivety was mostly charming, it was also pretty surprising. Not only was Zimmerman well aware that his debut album was coming out in a month, but he was also well aware that he had the No. 1 song on country radio — for three weeks running.

Zimmerman has become one of country's most successful new stars since he went viral on TikTok in 2021, scoring the biggest streaming country debut of all time and the most-streamed all-genre debut in 2022. And that three-week No. 1 — his gritty and gut-wrenching breakup tune "Rock and a Hard Place" — has since turned into six weeks, marking one of the biggest runs for a new act in Billboard's Country Airplay chart history. 

Perhaps Zimmerman himself put it best in an Instagram post celebrating his first No. 1 hit: "The last two years of my life have been a movie." And he hasn't even released a full album yet.

With his debut LP, Religiously. The Album., Zimmerman hopes to prove that his remarkable No. 1 streak wasn't just a fluke. He co-wrote 11 of the 16 tracks, and even when he didn't write them, it's clear he has a vision for writing country music with meaning.

The first two singles from Religiously. The Album. ("Rock" and "Fall In Love") are prime examples of the raw emotion and arena-rock ambition Zimmerman has to offer. Sure, the LP features some typical country vignettes — taillights fading into the distance ("Fadeaway," "Other Side of Lettin' Go"), dead-end streets and dive bar drinks ("Found Your Love," "Get To Gettin' Gone") — but it's certainly not cliche. 

Ultimately, Religiously. The Album. solidifies that Zimmerman's appeal doesn't come from infectious hooks and drinkin' songs — it's his relentless vulnerability and burning passion for love that's connecting. "I just want to make people feel something," he says. 

Zimmerman never even expected to get out of his hometown of Louisville, Illinois — a blue-collar town of just over 1,000 people, nearly four hours south of Chicago — particularly after landing a coveted spot in the labor union working on a gas pipeline. "That was gonna be my whole life," he says.

He initially gained a loyal social following through his passion for lifting trucks — a hobby that inadvertently led him to singing. Listening to Black Stone Cherry's "Stay" while working on a truck, he decided to record himself singing. 

"I listened back and I was like, 'That kind of sounds like the recording — I'm gonna put it on Snapchat and maybe see if some girls think I can sing,'" he recalls with a smile.

Though it didn't lead to any romantic connections, Zimmerman's video did spawn the most fateful relationship of them all: that with his go-to songwriting partner, Gavin Lucas. A budding songwriter at the time, Lucas showed Zimmerman the ropes before they wrote "Never Comin' Home," the song that changed everything.

The morning after posting the song to TikTok in January 2021, Zimmerman's following had doubled, and the video had already racked up nearly 2 million views. Within minutes of seeing the reaction, Zimmerman quit his union job. 

Three years prior to "Never Comin' Home," Zimmerman had lost the girl of his dreams — yes, the one who inspired "Rock and a Hard Place," among many of the Religiously tracks — and until that point, "everything just felt like it was going downhill." Once he started writing music, Zimmerman started feeling like there was hope — and once he saw that it could resonate with others, he knew he'd found his path.

"I had been praying so much. Like, 'Give me something to work hard at, give me something to chase. Give me something to just grind my ass off every day for,'" he remembers. "When [that] happened, I was like, 'This is exactly what I've been praying for.'

"It's the craziest thing to be a part of something that just feels so natural," he continues. "I did not feel natural in my hometown. And now, I feel like I can just be me. And my music can also be that too."

"Crazy" is a word that comes up often in our conversation, as well as a short-and-sweet phrase that Zimmerman can't help saying almost daily: "Holy crap." His excitement and eagerness is tangible, accented by a genuine disbelief that this is all really happening. (Case in point: When he interviewed with Cody Alan for CMT's Hot 20 Countdown in December, his reaction mirrored what he said at the beginning of our chat: "This is gonna be on TV? Dude, what?")

When I ask about moments that have felt too surreal to be true, his name-drops are undeniably impressive: "The first time I met Morg," he says, referring to the current king of country, Morgan Wallen (his current tourmate, though, as of press time, the tour was postponed due to Wallen's vocal issues), and "I smoked a cigarette with Tommy Lee."

"You gotta be somebody doing somethin' pretty badass to talk like we did," Zimmerman says of Lee, whom he met when Motley Crüe played in Nashville last year. "That was a big 'keep working hard' moment."

Zimmerman recognizes that while the past two years have largely been "a lot of ups and ups and ups," there's also been lots of learning along the way. He knows that he's young and there's plenty of growth ahead, with or without a successful career. But for now, he's taking it all in.

"I try to take every moment of the day to appreciate what's around me — the team, the people, my fans," he says. "I try to make sure that's in the back of my head all the time: 'These people are the reason you're here. Be nice to everybody, and make sure you're a good person. And call your mom every day, dude.'"

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