Early life[edit]

Beckham was born in Victorville, California to Windie Petersen and spent his childhood in Victorville, Hesperia, and Apple Valley, California.^[2][3] He went to Carmel Elementary School in Hesperia,^[2] Vanguard Preparatory School and Sitting Bull Academy in Apple Valley, before moving to Glendora High School at the age of 12, and continuing at Whitcomb High School, where he graduated in 2014.^[4] He worked as a heavy machinery operator and formed a reggae band called the Sinking Sailors when he was 19 or 20. He cited Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., and Hank Williams Sr. as his musical influences,^[5] In late 2020, two weeks before he auditioned for American Idol, he was involved in a near-fatal car wreck.^[6]