When people say, “I got my start on American Idol,” they typically mean that it was their big break. For Canadian country singer-songwriter Cameron Whitcomb, it was quite literally the very beginning. Having never recorded music or performed live (beyond karaoke covers), he went from singing on his couch to belting it out in front of a national audience on Season 20 of American Idol, where he made his true debut. But now, nearly three years since his Idol days, with nearly six million monthly listeners on Spotify, more than one million followers on TikTok and a second headlining tour on the horizon, Whitcomb is proving that the real work starts after the cameras stop rolling.
Since his musical debut, the now-22-year-old released his debut EP Quitter in 2024 after being signed to Atlantic Records earlier that year. The project’s title track has since racked up more than 45 million streams on Spotify, which earned Whitcomb his first song on Billboard’s Canadian Hot 100 and has since become certified gold by Music Canada. “I think ‘Quitter’ was probably one of the first [songs I wrote] about sobriety [and] when it really started to matter to me,” Whitcomb says over a video call with Melodic Magazine in March. “At the start [of sobriety] I was just like, ‘I have to get sober, this shit’s killing me so I have to get sober.’ But then I kind of fell in love with it, the idea behind it and how I was feeling.”
Whitcomb has been steadily climbing the charts and gaining attention since making it to American Idol’s Top 20 — just this year he’s already been featured on the cover of Apple Music’s Today Country playlist and been named on Spotify and Amazon Music’s 2025 Artist To Watch lists. On top of his 2024 EP, Whitcomb played some monumental shows as he opened for country artist Morgan Wade during her 2024 Obsessed Tour.
Fast forward to his latest release, “Options,” written by Whitcomb alongside Jack Riley, Cal Shapiro (Alex Warren, MisterWives) and Nolan Sipe (Benson Boone, Andy Grammer), released in early March has already accumulated more than 5 millions streams and offers an unfiltered look at the intrusive thoughts and lingering “what ifs” that come with sobriety. The song paints a picture of the mental tug-of-war between his past addictions and present sobriety, making it especially meaningful to the singer.
![Cameron Whitcomb - Options [Official Audio]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JnnWBGq_UDo/hqdefault.jpg)
After Idol, the transition back to normal life wasn’t easy. The excitement of Hollywood was replaced by the quiet of his family’s farm near Port Alberni, Vancouver Island. While only making it to the Top 20, he had gotten a taste of the spotlight, and it felt like everything was about to change. “For me, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before… I was just grateful to be there,” he admits. “It was cool. I had my dad there and it was fun.” But fame doesn’t come overnight and because of his time on Idol, Whitcomb had the epiphany that a career in music was tangible. “I’m grateful for the show for sure, because if it wasn’t for the show I probably wouldn’t realize that there can be more to my life than cutting down trees and digging holes,” he said.
The show gave him a platform, but when he returned home, reality hit: if he wanted to make music his life, he had to build it from the ground up. “I feel like it’s important for me to keep working hard and good things will happen. Hard work brings good luck. So as long as I’m doing this a hundred percent, then it’ll work.”
In 2023, he made one of the biggest decisions of his life: he got sober. Addiction had surrounded him from the early age of 13, beginning with alcohol and escalating to harder substances over the years. Growing up in an environment where alcohol was prevalent, Whitcomb struggled for years before finally getting sober at 20. Witnessing his best friend’s own journey to sobriety was a major turning point for Whitcomb, seeing firsthand how his friend’s life was transformed physically and mentally. This experience had become a theme in his songwriting. “At the start [of my career] I was trying to be honest and writing about things that meant a lot to me, and I think that’s kind of where I found my niche. The more honest I was about things, the more people could resonate with what I was trying to say.”
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