Warren Zeiders has recorded and released country music for the last four years. He’s one of those mid-20s men who broke through on social media and likes to show off his chiseled physique and toss his hair about on stage. The Pennsylvania native makes women swoon with his gritty, powerful vocals and lyrics that orbit around relationships.
None of it is by accident. While Zeiders intended to be a lacrosse player and never meant to be a country star – he’s approaching his surprise music career very intentionally.
“It’s my little brainchild,” Zeiders said of his career, proudly showing off the cover of his new album.
In March, the singer released his new 21-track album Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal via Warner Records. The cover art is the tire off his Mustang, the first thing he bought when “Pretty Little Poison” went to No. 1. He named the car Poison.
“It goes back to that business brain and the marketing behind all of it,” Zeiders said. “You come off of the Pretty Little Poison record, and the rose was the imagery behind it. The color sequence for that album was red. Now you flip it on its head for this album, and it’s the Mustang and the orange colors.”
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Warren Zeiders Gifted Himself a Mustang Named Poison
Zeiders’ limited-edition Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal vinyl is orange. The stickers in his giveaways are of his Mustang’s odometer.
“I grew up going to car shows with my grandfather, and I am no mechanic by any means,” Zeiders said, explaining he likely would have been if he had continued to live behind his grandparents in Hershey, Penn., where he grew up. “But that wasn’t a part of my story, and that’s not what God had intended for me.”
The singer’s grandfather was a mechanic and, at 72 years old, is one of Zeiders’ best friends.
“The 1967 Shelby GT 500 was one of those cars I absolutely loved growing up,” he said. “So, I found one, and it was my gift to myself. I found it only fitting to keep the imaging and the branding from the through line of the first record to now.”
Zeiders’ approach is working. He has already surpassed 3.6 billion global career streams. He has accumulated more than 2 billion TikTok views and over 7.8 million monthly Spotify listeners. “Pretty Little Poison” was No. 2 on Billboard’s 2024 year-end charts, and he launched his first European headlining tour in February. Now he’s entrenched in the U.S. dates of his Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal Tour, mimicking the name of his album.
Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal is Divided in Three Parts
The album’s title reflects its three title tracks, and “Relapse” is his current radio single.
“We dropped Relapse the project last August, and this is a continuation, this is now the album,” he said. “We called it a project because I was letting fans know there’s more music coming. Now we have the final complete body of art.”
Zeiders chose the words relapse, lies, and betrayal because they were prevalent experiences of his life last year. But he sees the silver lining.
“The year wasn’t all doom and gloom,” the singer said. “It made me a better person, and I’m thankful for going through it because it taught me a lot of things. It gave me a lot of inspiration to write really good music. I had to go through it to grow through it, and I get to write about it and sing about it. I get to inspire other people and let them know that they’re not alone and that the larger-than-life person they see on stage is human as well. We all go through the same stuff.”
Ross Copperman and Mike Elizondo produced Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal, which Zeiders said is a multi-layered album. He divides it in thirds, explaining some of the songs are acoustic with a vocal, others are “Pretty Little Poison” 2.0, and then more are a new sound he dabbled in with Elizondo.
Warren Zeiders is a Little Nickelback and a Little Justin Beiber
“You’re getting pretty much three different sides of Warren on this album, which is great,” he said. “Don’t put me in a box.’ I can be listening to Nickelback or a Christian song. I can be listening to Justin Bieber one day or rap. I have just an absolute love for music. I’m always going to be evolving and growing. My musical taste and flavors are going to be shown through that in the process of writing. It’s just making music that much more fun.”
While Zeiders made headlines recently when Kelly Clarkson flashed a shirtless picture of him on television, he wants people to know there’s more to him than his abs.
“There’s more than meets the eye,” Zeiders said of himself. “I think the cool thing for me is that it is all part of the journey. The show is meant to be what the show is. But whether it’s interviews or podcasts or whatever, that’s the way for me to show my human side. I think that that’s what makes this so much fun because it allows people to get that part of me.”
Photo by Austin Screws
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