At this phase of his young music career, Evan Honer is at his happiest when he’s writing sad songs.
It’s vulnerable, melancholy melodies found in his hits “Mr. Meyers” and “Foolin’ Ourselves” that have become the 23-year-old’s latest creative compulsion. His soft, folksy riffs seem to be catching on, as millions of fans have already flocked to his music on the internet.
“They’re really just easier to write,” he says. “I think I gravitate toward writing sadder melodies. It’s kind of just whatever I feel inspired or experienced. I hope that there’s some happy songs that I write in the future, but it’s a sad song theme right now.”
As his history suggests, when Honer obsessively locks in on an objective, the result is usually excellence.. The Arizona native, who now calls Nashville home, has gone from promising gymnastics prodigy to All-conference diver to now universally recognized folk-country recording artist. Currently in the middle of U.S. Nowhere Fast tour in support of his recently released album Fighting For.
“Playing in front of my audience is my favorite thing to do,” he says. “My whole band’s from Arizona, and we have really, really good time on stage, and I think everyone else is having a good time too in the audience, but it’s a lot of lot of sad songs—and a good amount of upbeat songs too.”
His unique country style has become huge on social media, with nearly five million likes on TikTok. Making Honer’s musical success even more unique is that it was just two years ago he had serious doubts about even continuing making music. For a moment, there were doubts after an embarrassingly disappointing appearance on American Idol. Honer felt he brought his best to the audition, yet received what seemed like the worst review possible. All three judges panned his performance.
Even though the criticism stung, luckily for Honer, as a world-class collegiate diver, he had experience dealing with judges. Just like bad music reviews, he used lower scores to work on weaknesses—through tweaking his training regimen. It made Honer a stronger athlete, and with music, using criticism as fuel is turning the singer into one of country music’s top up and coming artists.
“Being an athlete definitely helped with that, Honer says. “I’ve dealt with a decent amount of rejection, and it really never got to me too much. American Idol was the biggest one I’ve had, so it took a little longer.”
Evan Honer Has Always Been Consumed by Competition
Growing up in Surprise, AZ, about 45 miles northwest of Phoenix, Honer first brush with competition was as an elementary school student. He became consumed by the athleticism and dedication required for gymnastics, and by age 10 Honer had become an Arizona regionals champion. By age 13, however, he had already fallen out of love with gymnastics. He then turned his attention to a pair of different disciplines: trampoline and playing the guitar. “I was a pretty good gymnast,” he says, “but I just got burnt out and wanted to try other things like music.”
When he entered high school, he tried out for the diving team, although he didn’t know much about the sport. ”I wasn’t too familiar with it,” he says. But with my [gymnastics] background, I was able to pick it up pretty fast.”
When it came to success on the springboard, Honer’s biggest challenge he says, was nailing the hurdle (the final step sequence before taking off). Practice and weightroom moves like single-leg squats he says helped with technique and mobility and allowed him to elevate his skills quicker.
“I feel like, so high school diving was a lot different, because it just wasn’t as serious. There was just a lot of things that should have done to make me a better diver back then.”
Evan Honer Cut Weight to Become All-Conference
However, Honer was talented enough to make it on the WAC Conferences’ California Baptist University (CBU). He says training was totally different—at least 20 a hours a week was spent in the pool and in the weightroom. By the end of his freshman year, he can see his talent increase, as well as his body start to shred, dropping 15 pounds. “I was basically just cutting calories, it was the simplest way for me,” Honer says. “I just upped my cardio a little bit and then just cut my calories. And it worked for me.”
In 2021, Honer, earned WAC Diver of the Year honors. He also became the first male diver to ever sweep the WAC championships and setting a new CBU and WAC platform score record. At the same time he qualified for the WAC all-Academic Team.
“Diving was my whole life. I became obsessed with it,” he says. “It was just all I ever thought about. When I would watch TV, it would just be diving. By becoming obsessed with it I began setting extremely high goals for myself.
From Trying to Represent America to an ‘American Idol’ Nightmare
After earning all-conference honors, Honer challenged himself to earning a spot at the 2024 Olympics—diving’s highest level. However, during the trials, his score of 369 missed the competition’s cutoff of 380. From there, diving lost its edge in Honer’s busy schedule. “My original plan, since freshman year, was to do a fifth year and try for the [2024] Olympics,” he says. “But my senior year, my interests changed.”
By his senior season, Honer had developed a deeper passion for music than athletics. By no means was it an overnight transition. His days were spent diving, training, and working on academics. At night, however, Honer spent many college performing at open mics and or local clubs throughout Riverside. “[The city] wasn’t huge on music, but I tried my best,” he says.
The more Honer performed, he says more of his inner circle pushed him to reach higher. It was an idea that hadn’t originally registered with him. “At the time I didn’t feel the need to play on the biggest stage in the world,” he says. “I was kind of OK with how things were. Then it kind of felt like, yeah, maybe this is possible.”
In 2022, Evan Honer took his biggest leap—auditioning for American Idol. After getting the OK from his coach to skip practice, Honer headed to Vegas. In front of the Idol trio of celebrity judges, Honer performed his song, “How Could I Ever.” Hoping for the best, Honer wasn’t prepared for how bad the critique turned out. First, Lionel Ritchie said no, then Katy Perry seconded that assessment. However, the third rejection stung the most. Country superstar Luke Bryan told Honer he was better off returning to diving and not risk his scholarship for music
“That was a tough one, for sure,” he admits. “I struggled with that for months. I started thinking that maybe they were right. Here’s three extremely successful people in the industry telling me it’s not worth it. “
Turning Rejection Into Success
Although he continues to pour out a host of sad songs, Evan Honer can now laugh a little about his American Idol experience. Less than a year after being rejected, he’s established a base of a million monthly listeners on Spotify who are streaming his country tunes faster than even he could have anticipated.
“When it comes down to it, nobody has any idea who the next artist will be to blow up,” he says. “There’s a lot of people that are going to act like they have it figured out, but truly nobody has it figured out.”
He went back to Vegas after the Idol experience and filmed a video for the remake of the Tyler Childers hit “Jersey Giant.” The video went viral. Now with a new album and a tour that continues till the rest of the year, he’s grateful for all those fans and followers who stuck with him.
Thankfully, I’m able to do this full time and and go on the road and share the music, share my music with people that will listen. But yeah, I got three no’s from American Idol first.”
Over time the skills through practice and performance have hardened Honer. The toughness he developed from athletics helped harden him for the cutthroat music biz.
“There’s a lot of divers that are really good in practice, but whether it’s mental or they get nervous, when they go into a competition, everything is thrown out the window,” he says. “I’ve seen so many much better divers than me. But I’ve beaten them because something out of the ordinary gets in the way. It plays a big part.”
With no time in his Nashville schedule to continue diving, Honer now relies on a running regimen—several miles, several days a week—to maintain his athletic physique. But he promises when his career builds so will the country muscle.
“One of my friends just went on tour with Tim McGraw, and he travels with a semi truck that’s like Planet Fitness,” Evan Honer says. “Until I can have one of those, running is going to be what I enjoy with fitness at the moment.”