Facts new Bayker Blankenship fans should know

One of the fastest rising stars in country music is Bayker Blankenship. At just 19 years old, Blankenship has dominated the TikTok scene and has gathered over 40 million streams.

Born and raised about two hours outside of Nashville in Livingston, Tennessee, Blankenship picked up the guitar during the pandemic in 2020 and showed some interest in music. After the pandemic, Blankenship decided he wanted to go full steam with his music career instead of being a pit master at his local barbecue restaurant.

Blankenship began performing at local bars in his hometown and soon realized that people loved his music. From there, Blankenship was inspired by Tyler Childers and began to post videos on TikTok of his original songs, as well as covers of Childers and other legendary country artists.

Once Blankenship was able to go live on TikTok, he gained thousands of new followers each night. There was one original song that he eventually posted that made him go viral, and that was “Maxed Out.”

“My buddy, Trevor Daniels, helped me write the song. We were in his basement just hanging out, playing on the guitars a little bit. He whipped his phone out and was like, ‘man listen to this verse that I got.’ Read the first verse and I was like ‘that’s tight,’ Blanksenship said. “Then we wrote the second verse just a little bit and had some of the chorus and I took it home and I was just sitting there scratching my head and was like ‘man what can we do with this.’ I finished it that night in my bedroom and sent it to him the next morning, posted a TikTok that night and it kind of blew up for me,” Blankenship said in an interview.

That song now has over 77 million streams just on Spotify.

From there, Blankenship released a six song EP in July of 2024 called, “Younger Years.” Within the first week of the release, he had over four million streams for the EP.

The “Maxed Out” singer talked about the EP and said it’s about, “being a kid, living, doing all of the dumb stuff as a kid.”

The songs talk about what life is going to be like after graduating and growing up. Are you going down the right path, or do you need to switch directions and choose a different path?

“You go into lost time (as a kid). All the crazy s*** we did as kids, riding around, cruising, and talking about life because as a kid, that’s all you really have to think about,” Blankenship said on TikTok. “Everybody’s telling you it’s nothing, but a bunch of lost time, but really those moments are very memorable and you always remember them.”

When he’s not writing or playing music, Blankenship loves to golf. He was also on the fishing team in high school for four years and is a fan of bass fishing.

There’s no doubt that there’s no slowing down the rise of Blankenship as he continues to put out new music – a different style than most country music fans are used to hearing.

Blankenship will be part of 98.5 KYGO’s Birthday Bash on July 6 at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre.