Maddie Zahm

Maddie Zahm is dreaming of a world where curiosity matters more than anything, where feelings are treated as proof that you’re alive. The LA-based, Idaho-born singer-songwriter first felt the need to slip into a comfy cardigan and tennis shoes as a childhood acolyte of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but reaches that warm, kaleidoscopic idyll on new album Everything All the Time (due early fall). By embracing the strange, beautiful flood of becoming yourself on your own terms, the warm, candid, funny, and awe-inspiring record captures what it feels like to stop viewing growth as a final destination and start treating it as an ongoing act of curiosity, compassion, and coming home to yourself. "Mr. Rogers gave me permission to feel deeply," Zahm beams. "I want my music to be welcoming in that same way, to create an inclusive world that people can be a part of." After years spent unraveling everything from body image to faith, sexuality, and identity in songs that connected with millions of listeners, Zahm now finds herself in a softer and more expansive chapter: one less focused on tearing herself apart to find answers or fitting into a box and more interested in celebrating the messy, ever-changing person emerging from the wreckage. Instead of trying to make some splash by fitting into a cookie cutter pop industry or fitting to the expectations of her community in a country or christian music lane, Zahm became determined to chase her own identity. And in that way, Everything All the Time beautifully reinforces the lesson that first drew Zahm toward the gentle emotional honesty of Mister Rogers: feeling deeply is both a gift and a responsibility. Rather than flattening herself into a self-help slogan or treating vulnerability like a moral high ground, Zahm allows her songs to exist in their fullest nuance. That openhearted charm comes not only from unbounded compassion, but also from years of refining her artistic voice in the music industry. Since bursting onto the scene, Zahm’s music has amassed more than 345 million streams worldwide, with the single “You Might Not Like Her” reaching the Top 5 of Spotify’s US Viral Chart. She’s found perhaps another amazing level of success on social media, with hit single “Fat Funny Friend” alone generating over 2 billion TikTok views. Along the way, she’s sold out headline tours across the US and internationally, shared stages with artists like P!nk, and earned acclaim from outlets including NPR, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and People—all built on a fusion of her impeccable songwriting, unrivaled voice, and boundless charisma, resulting in an online community of nearly two million followers drawn to her singular mix of vulnerability, humor, and hard-earned self-awareness. True to her kids' TV inspiration, Zahm’s moving new album makes it clear that tapping into the full breadth of the universe isn’t always easy. On the title track lead single, the now Los Angeles-based artist uses her transcendent voice to bring the listener into that emotional journey, to act as a companion to share the pain. “You can't hurt my feelings because my feelings they hurt me/ Another stranger's life story's the reason I can't sleep,” she sings, each syllable like a tiptoed step over dry-ice fog piano. And when the track cracks open to make room for sweeping acoustic guitar and thunderous toms, her voice rises to the moment, a totemic beam lighting through the clouds. Finding a new creative home has created another level of depth. “Since moving to California, I’ve not only redefined how I write music, but I’ve come out as queer to myself,” Zahm says. “In Idaho, I thought I needed to be a traditional country singer or Christian artist. LA provided me a place to discover who I am personally and artistically, to open myself to the idea that I could be an artist of my choosing.” That newfound confidence breathes through the swaggery “Meryl”, a track dedicated to Zahm’s celebrity dream date. “I was dabbling in dating older women and loved the ridiculous idea of a song dedicated to my crush on Meryl Streep,” she giggles. And by taking clever twists on twangy pop tropes (acoustic chug, corkscrew backing vocals, a cheeky “hell yeah” on the bridge), Zahm reinforces both her technical strength and eagerness to explore where her new sense of self fits in—using a fictional romance to paradoxically open up and share more of herself than ever before. “Self-discovery never stops, but you can get to a place where it slows down,” she explains. “But I remind myself that I'm never again going to be somebody who's coming out of the closet and leaving the church and doing great. I can only do that once so I should create something really beautiful from it.” Undergoing that much change, of course, doesn’t happen in a vacuum, as Zahm explores in the stunning “Hometown Letdown”. Sung from the perspective of people still living in her Idaho hometown, the track turns their judgment and speculation into an epic shout-along, the kind of track tailor-made for giddy sing-alongs, a whole community of outcasts learning to move beyond the concerns of people who want to define them. “Probably wasn’t cause we’re hateful/ So let’s chalk it up to her being ungrateful,” Zahm sings, before a crackling guitar line underscores her rippling vocals. “Not long ago, I wouldn't have been able to joke about things like that because it wasn't funny, being treated like the trope of the girl who leaves the little city and now has a girlfriend and sometimes smokes weed,” she smiles. “But now I can see how silly it is.” That willingness to share even in the face of criticism is crucial to Zahm both musically and with her fanbase, a quality that makes her immaculate songs that much more beguiling. Rather than arch self-deprecation, there’s a pained warmth to comparing herself to an ill-timed smoke as she does on “Drunk Cigarette” ("A bad idea walking home from the bar"). In a world where some fans expect a static personality or a sculpted character, Zahm’s music continues to reinforce embracing change and flawed reality. The track also highlights some of the most impressive musicianship of the album, a spectral choir of layered vocals soaring over coarse waves of acoustic guitar and a thrumming rhythm section. Produced by Ehren Ebbage (Lizzy McAlpine, Myles Smith) and featuring a handful of Zahm’s closest collaborators including additional production and co-writing by Adam Yaron (Alex Warren), Everything All the Time wears its expansive approach proudly and spectacularly. Across the album, Maddie Zahm doesn’t present growth as a clean arc or emotional enlightenment as a finish line. Instead, she offers something warmer, stranger, and far more human: permission to keep evolving, to keep feeling, and to keep searching for yourself with compassion. “There’s a lot of good that comes from my big feelings, like my music and my friendships and my ability to connect with people,” she says. “I’m so happy to feel everything because I would rather that than be somebody that is numb, even if it comes with some pain.”