Joining host Bru for a special Audacy Check In today is singer/songwriter Benson Boone to discuss his brand new chart-topping hit "Beautiful Things," upcoming tour dates, debut album plans, and more.

"Sugar Sweet" singer Benson Boone has returned this year with his new smash single "Beautiful Things," and will be hitting the road on a massive world tour beginning this April.

“I tried to be really good about setting goals this year,” Boone tells us of his year so far. “Before I'd be like, ‘I'm gonna work out eight days a week… No, it's just never gonna work.’ But this year I was really set on my goals, and two of my biggest goals were, one, to have a song over 200 million streams, and two, to get 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and month two -- done, and done.”

“It blew my mind how insane this song took off,” he adds, “and then how people are taking it… I'm incredibly grateful for the support it's been shown. it actually is crazy to me.”

“This song is definitely a lot different from every song I’ve released,” Benson explains. “It is a very different sound, a different part of my voice, and kind of like a little bit more near what my music will sound like in the future. I think a different audience took this song and obviously social media helped a lot with that.”

“I think this song, in my opinion, is so much different than all my other music,” he continues, “and it's a lot better. It's just kind of new, it just feels like a new sound.”

Getting into some specifics behind his new single, “Beautiful Things,” Benson says he’s proud of the soaring high notes that he hits throughout the chorus. “I've been working on training my voice to hit that and not die because when I was in the studio, I definitely did not sing it healthy,” he admits. “I tried to sing it so it would sound the best for the song. But I was like, tapping myself so I could hit those notes, trying to just do anything I could to make sure it didn't sound crazy.”

Now seeing his song at the top of the charts amongst new music from Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift to name just a few, Benson says the last couple of weeks have been “hard to process.”

“It like, genuinely blows my mind,” he says. “I still don't think I actually understand the weight of how the song is doing. There's been one moment, it was three weeks ago when I wrote the acoustic version for ‘Beautiful Things,’ and I listened to it after we had wrote it in the car… after listening to it, it was a very emotional moment for me. Like, like the one, two-minute period I've had in the past two months of actually thinking about what the song has done and how it's doing.”

Looking ahead, Benson’s tour dates will kick off in just a couple of weeks, and he reveals, “An album is definitely in the near future.”

“I'm honestly so stoked for tour," he says. "This will be, for sure, the biggest shows I've played, and to me, I love performing. That's where I'm in my element. So, I'm very, very excited to be on the road with the boys and just ripping every night.”

“I have never been more proud of my sound,” Benson says of the tracks he’s been working on for his full-length debut. “The songs I've written and how they sound, how they feel, the melodies, the lyrics… I love the songs I've made recently more than any other songs I've ever created,” he says. “Do I know if other people will like them more? Like, no idea. But in my standpoint, I think I'm the most proud of the next songs that will be released for sure.”

“I've talked to so many artists and everybody kind of says the first album is like your whole life up until that point,” he says. “That's why I really wanted this one to be perfect for me, like, just feel right for me. And truly, I mean, no song is similar to the next. They're all so, so, so different and I think that's what I love… every song is like a different mindset, me in a different period of my life.”

Though he hasn’t revealed an official release date yet, he warns, “Whenever it comes out, whenever you guys want to listen to it in the near future -- in the very near future -- just like, definitely be prepared for, you know, screaming songs and slow songs… just every vibe.”

2024 is shaping up to be a big year for Boone -- the North American leg of his upcoming Fireworks And Rollerblades tour kicks off on April 3 in Chicago, making stops in Boston, Philly, NYC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and more before wrapping up in Vancouver on May 4. After that, he's set to head to the UK and Europe and will finish everything off with dates in Australia and New Zealand through September. 

Don’t miss Bru's full Audacy Check In with Benson Boone above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/live.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru