The Harvest Festival will host American Idol royalty this Saturday.
Chayce Beckham is a CMT nominated singer-songwriter whose platinum single “23” has captivated and resonated with the country music scene recently. The 28-year-old musician will bring his authentic country spirit and stripped-down lyricism to the Harvest Festival in Winkler on Saturday as the night’s headliner.
Although this will be Beckham’s first visit to Winkler and even Manitoba, he is kindred with the small community atmosphere and wide-open space that characterizes the area. There is only one significant difference — he grew up in the desert, not on the prairie.
“I'm from the High Desert in Southern California,” he says. “I was born in a town called Victorville. I spent most of my time growing up in Apple Valley . . . . It's kind of on the way out of California on your way out to Arizona.”
Beckham first made waves in 2021 as American Idol’s season 19 winner. Not only did his talents carry him to the top of the competition, but he did it with his own songs.
“There were guys before me, like Alejandro [Aranda], who sang . . . original songs on the show . . . . I was just kind of inspired by his deal and what he was doing,” he says. “[When] I got on, I just kept on pushing to sing some of my own songs.”
Beckham’s original songs were heartily accepted by the American Idol community. He went on to win the show with “23.” Another special moment to Beckham was his performance of his original “Mama” on American Idol for Mother’s Day.
As for “23,” Beckham says that he wrote the song a few months before he got onto the singing competition and submitted it along with 15 other original songs after he auditioned and got through.
“I just figured, ‘I'm going to send them all my music, and maybe they'll like some of it or something,’” he says. “That was kind of the beginning of it.”
For Beckham, “23” is “more of a journal entry than it is a song.”
“It's not really a traditional song where you would just sit down and be like, ‘oh, I have this idea, let's write this,’” he says. “It's kind of something that just came from my pain and struggles and just me talking about my life and things that I've been through.”
Beckham says that he wrote the song quickly and did not change anything about it once it was on paper. It only took him 15 minutes to generate the lyrics and map out how they would sound to music.
“I think a lot of people can relate to it because that's all that it is — it's just a piece of my life on a piece of paper,” he says. “It's not smoke and mirrors or bells and whistles and all that. It's just, ‘this is what happened to me. And this is what I'm dealing with right now.’”
For the country artist, the natural development of the song adds to his fondness for it.
“That's kind of the beauty of writing songs that you don't have any idea are going to be the hit record or not. You just write something that makes you feel better about some of the mistakes that you've made, or some of the things that you've done, or the things that you've gone through,” he says. “You say it to get it off your chest.”
Even so, Beckham did not expect so much interest in the song.
"I never thought it was going to be a hit record. I just was trying to make myself feel better,” he says. “I thought it was just a part of my life that I wrote and just put down on paper . . . . Eventually it turned into a song I had to sing every night.”
Beckham’s album “Bad For Me” features nine of his original songs. To sum up his songwriting style, it’s an act of catharsis. Anyone who is familiar with the album will know that some of the songs touch on gritty subjects.
“I think for that album . . . it's just because the last ten years of my life, that's what it was, you know? And so I don't think it's me trying to only write music like that, I think it's me trying to move on,” he says. “Sometimes you beat yourself up, your life gets you down. I tend to write a song about it and that always . . . brightens up my day a little bit.”
Beckham says that because his songs are connected to what he’s experiencing at the time, his style is likely to change in the future.
“[As] my life goes on and I start having kids and get married and those things come into play, then I'll start writing about that kind of [thing],” says the musician. “Right now, the only thing I remember is the last ten years . . . . It just feels good to kind of . . . close the chapter on all those songs.”
Hear and experience the singer-songwriter's straightforward, close-to-the heart music for yourself this weekend at the Harvest Festival. Beckham headlines Triple E Main Stage on Saturday. His performance begins at 8:45 p.m.
~With files from Ty Hildebrand~