A former UNCW baseball player received the golden ticket to Hollywood on ABC’s American Idol. Last week, January 26, Jayson Arendt of Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, appeared on American Idol as a Hollywood hopeful and left a star.
Jayson Arendt is a 24 year old country singer, who has risen to prominence on TikTok making music and lifestyle content. With songs like ‘My July’ and ‘Like A Small Town’, Jayson has amassed over 6,000 Spotify monthly listeners, 150,000 TikTok followers, and 50,000 Instagram followers. He made his way to Nashville, Tennessee, for his audition where he brought his teammates from the Texas Tailgaters, a Banana Ball Baseball League team, commonly compared to the Harlem Globetrotters.
For his audition, Jayson performed ‘Fire Away’ by Chris Stapleton, a song the judges found to be an impressive undertaking, while playing a guitar live. He received three astounding yesses from the judging panel, including Lionel Richie, Carrie Underwood, and Luke Bryan. “You’ve got a nice voice; you’ve got a distinguishable voice. We don’t have anything like that yet.” said Richie, while Bryan and Underwood offered general performers advice surrounding volume and brand building.
You can catch American Idol on ABC at 8/7c every Monday and the next day on Hulu, as well as get the behind the scenes on their social media. Marsh Coast Radio wishes Jayson the best of luck and we hope to hear more soon!