A singer/songwriter tries out for American Idol, makes it to Hollywood and then drops out. His decision to do so turns out to be correct, because he then goes on to score a big hit. No, we’re not talking about Benson Boone and “Beautiful Things” — we’re talking about Max McNown and “A Lot More Free.”
Just like Benson, Max is an American Idol alum. “I actually was a contestant on American Idol for a brief moment in time,” he told ABC Audio. “I went to Casamigos, California, and I auditioned in front of Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie, and I got the Golden Ticket, and I was like super-excited. I was on top of the world.”
But then, Max said, a song he’d posted on social media called “A Lot More Free,” which he wrote about a breakup, went viral.
“‘A Lot More Free’ started to have that life of its own,” he said. “I had to make the really difficult decision to kind of move on from American Idol instead of following it to the end just because I felt like I had started to build this career.”
While it was “such a difficult decision” for him, Max says he then felt he got a sign from the universe that he’d made the right call: Earlier this year, Kelly Clarkson performed “A Lot More Free” on her talk show as part of her popular Kellyoke segment.
“When Kelly Clarkson ended up covering my song, in the same way ‘A Lot More Free’ was my claim to freedom from that past heartbreak, seeing Kelly Clarkson cover that song was the full-circle moment of that whole experience on American Idol,” said Max. “And I was like, ‘Okay, I think I made the right decision.'”
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
