Growing up in Virginia, Matt Maeson got his start performing for inmates at maximum-security prisons across America at age 17. “I’d get up and do these acoustic songs on my guitar, and they’re still the best shows I’ve ever done,” says the Nashville-based singer/songwriter. “You’re playing for all these people who are treated like they’re monsters, and it feels like spreading some light into a really dark place.” As he built up his body of work, Maeson increasingly relied on songwriting as an emotional outlet. “I started getting into a lot of trouble, doing a lot of drugs, getting arrested,” he says. “Music became a way of getting things off my chest, and I started writing with more honesty.” In addition to working construction 12 hours a day and doing community service on his time off, he began traveling the country with a notebook and a guitar, often going back to play in the prisons where he got his start. He soon signed a deal with Neon Gold/Atlantic Records, then made his debut with Who Killed Matt Maeson—a 2017 EP featuring his breakthrough single “Cringe,” which hit #12 on Spotify’s US Viral 50.