With his Marlboro Man mysterious cool and piercing gaze, Warren Zeiders seems like a classic country archetype. Cowboy hat, denim worn just so, proper plaid shirt. Obviously the man behind the 717 Tapes and hits “Ride the Lightning,” “Pretty Little Poison” and “Burn It Down” has his bona fide, certified cowboy credentials.

Except for growing up in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Maybe attending Frostburg State University in Maryland, where he studied business and played varsity lacrosse before being sidelined by concussions. Or the fact that he started posting videos on TikTok for something fun to do with his newfound time, then put his advanced business learning into practice to develop and amplify the response.

The collision of Music Row and the dark-headed vocalist is a multi-platinum certification on “Ride The Lightning,” as well as over 500 million views. Written with artists-turned-songwriting marksmen Rob Crosby and Eric Paslay, “Lightning” captured a man against the system, the seize-the-moment ethos of an outlier willing to walk his own line.

His brio and laid-back swagger were undeniable. Courted by many, he was ultimately signed to Warner Records by Aaron Bay-Schuck, the man who signed Zach Bryan, one of country’s greatest, beyond-the-traditional-artist-development breakouts ever. With “Pretty Little Poison” falling right behind it, Zeiders is staking out his own space in today’s country.

You literally caught lightning, didn’t you?

My only answer is everything happens for a reason. The concept of “Ride the Lightning” was kind of a sequel to my first song, “On the Run.”

Eric Paslay and Rob Crosby did their homework. They knew I was wet behind the ears, but they’d listened to my songs. They were ready. It’s funny—it was my first-ever co-write, first time in Nashville, but they really understood where I was coming from.

First co-write?

Right? You’re talking to your managers, to people in the business, they’re telling you that you still need to write a 100 songs to figure out your voice. But playing it back home, playing it on livestreams, people were asking for it who’d never been there before.

So I went into a recording studio, sang it three times with my acoustic guitar. It’s free-form, you know? It’s hard to put a tempo to it because we’d put it down live. I spent $10 to master it online, because I just had a feeling.

That’s crazy.

Yes. My first double-platinum song cost me $700. When we put the first mix up, the response was so strong, my manager says, “Maybe we should put a pre-save link up.” We had 40,000 pre-saves that day, and we didn’t have art yet.

Country singer from Pennsylvania is an oxymoron, especially one so smoky and Western.

People think Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but I grew up with nothing but cornfields. There were three places to pick to eat—a pizza parlor and two diners. We’d drive an hour to Harrisburg to go to Sam’s Club. But we had morals, values, community, the things that come with living in a small town. A lot of people have said that, but country music isn’t just in the South. It’s everywhere.

There’s a grit, too.

There’s something to be said for working people. There are things that drive those people—working for what you want, putting the hours in to provide for your family.

How do you define that?

I’m not claiming to be a cowboy. At the end of the day, I want to be authentic. I love going to the rodeo, but I never claimed that. I’m the bad boy athletic kid who’ll knock you out coming up, because of that competitive fire.

That spirit, too, is part of the hat. At my shows, you’ll see cowboys and bikers, but they’re both people who love country music. It’s kind of Yellowstone meets Sons of Anarchy

That’s visual.

For me, all of it comes down to who’s the character in the song, where are we, who’s the guy singing to, do I believe the guy delivering it? Because if I don’t, we need to go back to work. At the end, it’s that inner rebel inside me growing up.

Give me a word.

Dangerous. Daredevil. I was always getting hurt, jumping on my dirt bike and taking off somewhere. And number one, there’s an authenticity to it that people can feel. There’s always a good guy and a bad guy, and what they do isn’t that different. It’s why they do it. It’s how I’ve formed what music comes out, how I lean; how do we push it out?

Your success is pretty cowboy.

It’s a very real thing, and it is the Wild West in a lot of ways. Everyone has numerous ways to get music out there—you can pivot and become something that can solidify into a career.

People can say, “Oh, yeah, he just posts on TikTok, he has a social-media thing,” but this isn’t that. There are hard facts. The tickets sold were undeniable. My first show was for 700 people, and it just keeps growing. I did that by trusting my gut, but then I put all those business principles to work.

You were a varsity-level lacrosse player. There’s a lot at work here.

I’m a firm believer the good Lord has a plan for us. You’re right. The story begins with me being a lacrosse player for 12 years, and my plans got changed from too many concussions. I didn’t start posting country videos for a career, but to pass the time.

And I love all sorts of music. I’m a lover of music as a whole, but that’s love, not a career. Mötley Crüe, AC/DC, Nickelback, Young Dolph. I’m a huge [Chris] Stapleton fan, his voice and his writing. Zach, Morgan Wallen, so many songs from his Dangerous. Two songs, especially, “Drunk Driving” by Koe Wetzel and “Nose on the Grindstone” from Tyler Childers

Until.

It all started to blow up. I started paying attention to the people, how it was happening—and asking myself what are the positives of all this? I mean, I’d gone to Guitar Center, bought two mics, an interface and was singing these songs a few times in my childhood bedroom.

Nothing I do is by accident. At the end of the day, yes, I’m an artist. But this is a business. It’s good for you to be aware of decisions and the music. There’s discipline, the sports acumen. I was raised with 6 am wake-up calls, working out on a field when the sun isn’t even out; the study halls, the game films. Why wouldn’t you apply that to something as important as music?

You called your label 717 Music?

That’s the area code where we’re from. [This] started stripped down, acoustic, at the roots. You know, that’s where authenticity lies. I love rock & roll, but country’s the storytelling. So all of this is a lifestyle—and that’s where we come from.

My mom was a former CFO. My dad did investments, sold life insurance, ran a car dealership for a few years. They’ve worked for the man, now they’re working for me, and I’m able to give them experiences that have been awesome. All that is in all of this.