The breakout country music star applies an intense mindset to life on the road, which comes from playing college lacrosse, taking pride in his looks, and being in love with the grind.

At just 25 years old, Warren Zeiders possesses a discipline far beyond his years. He’s racked up billions of streams, millions of social media followers, and countless swoons with his mix of internet savvy, catchy songs, and shredded body. Before taking his talents to Nashville, the Hershey, Pennsylvania native was a college athlete, which taught him valuable lessons about the tireless work needed to perfect his craft.

Once he hung up the lacrosse stick, it didn’t take him long to find success in the music industry. He’s had singles go double platinum, brought home a CMT Award, and thanks to a maniacal workout routine, also earned a spot in People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2024 edition. When Zeiders sat down for a video call with GQ in February, he had just finished a European tour, marking the first time he’d ever been across the pond. With his new album Relapse, Lies, & Betrayal set to drop on March 14 and a headlining spot at the Houston Rodeo, life is good for the long-haired country heartthrob, who’s not afraid to put down two steaks at lunch.

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GQ: Is it true that you’ve had seven concussions?

Warren Zeiders: That is true, yeah.

How did that happen?

Twelve years of playing lacrosse. Lacrosse is a lot more of a physical sport than people care to imagine.

It’s like hockey on land, basically.

That’s what I always say!

Were all seven concussions from lacrosse?

I would say yes. I was always just an active kid: snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding, BMX, dirt biking, four wheelers. I probably had hit my head a couple times doing that stuff, too. So, I would say that I had seven diagnosedprobably, but there’s no telling how many times I’ve hit my damned head.

I was raised in a household with two loving parents, but I also grew up in a household where they knew when to show tough love. My dad was very much the old school way of rub some dirt on it. He was a very gifted baseball player, had the opportunity to try out for the majors and stuff. Unfortunately, he was not fast enough running around the bases, so he didn’t make it. That being said, my household was very sports-driven, so I played lacrosse 365 days a year. There was no offseason for me, which I’m very grateful for. That really, in turn, built me for what I do for a living now. I believe there’s no offseason for me doing what I do now. Being in this industry, it’s not a career, it’s a lifestyle.

What lessons do you feel like you’ve been able to bring from the lacrosse field to your new line of work? Are there any similarities that you notice?

There’s a lot of similarities. The big thing that was tough for me when getting into this is that music is art. It’s all up to interpretation when it comes to, are the fans going to like this song? Is this song streaming better than this song? What made this hook better? What made this resonate with a larger demographic compared to these songs? Why did this have success on social media? Why did this one not? I’m very much an analytical guy, I love numbers. That’s very much so from my mother and father, who are like that too. When I played lacrosse, it was like, how’d you play? Well, I had this many ground balls, I had this many assists, I had this many goals. I’m always analyzing in that aspect, from sports to what I’m doing now.

Man, there’s a lot of different things that I’ve taken away from sports. It is a lifestyle [as well]. I’m not the guy out there on the road that’s going to bars after shows. I’m the dude that’s hopping on his bus, grabbing a shower, throwing on a movie, working with my content guy figuring out what we’re posting on the [Instagram] Story that night. I’m always on the grind, wanting to perfect my craft, and that was how I treated lacrosse. I played in college for two years, so it was 4 am wake up calls, being on the field before anyone was awake. Then you have your second workout in the afternoon, more class, then you have homework, you have film room, you have study hall with the team, and then some days you go back out and have a scrimmage.

You’re always doing something and you’re always working on your craft. I think that was innately instilled in me over the course of my lifetime—not just from sports, but from my upbringing, watching my parents work their ass off for everything that they were able to provide for my sister and I. So, I don’t take what I do lightly, I work my ass off.

Since your music has blown up, so too has the attention around your physique. Kelly Clarkson got a nice little show from you. Is that strange for you? Having people—I don’t know if ogle is the right word—but being known as the ripped singer guy?

No, man. Again, I’m a brand. I come from a background of athletics, but also business and marketing. You have no idea how big of a deal this is to me. Funny enough, my mom and dad always called me “GQ” growing up, because I always liked to dress nice and was very presentable and everything. I’ve always taken pride in my appearance. I do like to look good. That does come down to eating healthy, what I’m doing in the gym, that stuff. But yes, I’ve always loved working out just from doing it for so long and it being drilled into me from a young age.

Where did the abs come from? What was the routine to get this six-pack we see today?

Well, you hear it every single place you go on the internet. Every fitness influencer will always tell you it begins in the kitchen, getting in a caloric deficit and stuff. I recently just got my body comp tested when I was over in Europe because I just wanted to see where I was sitting. It came back at 9% body fat. So, I’ve definitely leaned out quite a bit these last couple of months. During the winter I was trying to get super shredded for my most recent photo shoot. But for me, it’s just honestly keeping track of your calories. People will always say to you, “I have a sweet tooth for this,” or, “It’s so hard to do.” And I’m like, it’s not. I always joke around and say, “You just have to eat like a dog.”

Once you have an idea of what you can eat, you stick to that same meal plan. Like, this morning I had half a bagel with peanut butter and honey on it. That’s considered my sweet treat. Honey, just being a natural sweetener, is a great thing to alleviate that sweet tooth. Then I do four eggs, a cup of blueberries, and one cup of black cold brew coffee with a splash of creamer, and one cup of liquid egg whites with five-calorie-per-tablespoon Hershey’s chocolate syrup. High protein, low on fats, just a super clean diet. I will admit, being on tour—especially being over in the UK and Europe for a month—it was tough trying to find protein in the mornings. Over there, they love their pastries.

They sure do.

I’m going out with my content guy, he’s filming vlog stuff, and it’s me bitching up a storm because I can’t find eggs. I’m like, it’s nothing but carbs! One day we went to a grocery store and I was asking this guy, he could barely speak English, I was like, “Egg whites.” He points me in the direction. I literally took my arm and just put them all—every last one that they had—into my basket so I could just have at least 30, 40 grams of protein in the morning.

When you’re at home, are you eating that breakfast you described every single day?

Yup. I am a rituals and habits guy. I do the same thing every single morning, same breakfast. After you and I are done with this interview, I’m shooting content with my guy for social, and then I’ll be hitting an ice bath. After that, I’m going to go do half an hour, 45 minutes of cardio at the gym and just go get a sweat in. But yes, I still do the same warmups, same routines that I did from when I first started touring, whether it’s praying with my band members every single night before we go on stage, or the same vocal warmups.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. People ask me what I listen to in the gym and think that I’m listening to music. I’m actually listening to podcasts. People that inspire me and I admire [range] anywhere from Joe Rogan to Jacob Wilkins to David Goggins, Tom Brady, even some of Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes. Just people that have awesome stories. The best piece of advice I can give to people reading this is to find those things that make your life easier. When you instill good rituals and habits in your life, you don’t think about it. It’s habitual. It’s just, this is what I’m doing.

Are you cooking lunch and dinner too?

Love to cook, and I really like meal prep. I’ll cook ground bison, chicken breasts—actually, a secret trick of mine that I found on TikTok: I actually air fry the chicken breasts. I season both sides, and the way that the air fryer cooks the chicken, it’s perfectly cooked, still juicy when you take it out.

I just portion out four ounces of that, or four ounces of ground beef, and I’ll put it in a bowl together with a cup of rice. Hot sauce is great for when you’re eating these kinds of meals because hot sauce has no calories. That’s another thing, too, that people forget when it comes to dieting. You don’t think about the sauces. The stuff that’s in ketchup, all the sugars and stuff. Mustard’s another great one that’s no calories.

What are you doing for exercise when you’re on tour?

Well, I’ll say this much. It was freezing over in Europe. I did not pack proper workout attire for outside runs. Being over there was a culture shock. It doesn’t matter what career you’re in, there will always be ways for you to find excuses not to do things. So when I was over there, I could have easily said, you know what? I’m not working out today. I’m in a new country today, I don’t know my surroundings. I was just trying to find a gym local to the venue. That was the other tough thing. In the States, venues typically have relationships with gyms. It’s a thing. Your tour manager’s like, “Hey, my artist wants to work out.” That’s already on their radar so that when you get there, it’s like, here’s your passes, here’s the gym, we’ll drop you off.

In the morning, it was, okay, how can I get coffee? How can I get protein in my system? What gym am I going to today? I don’t care how it gets done, I’m doing it. It was the hotel gym sometimes, and then it was just finding gyms that were nearby, going and getting a sweat in, and just doing the thing. There’s no crying about it. Yeah, this is going to suck sometimes because I gotta get an Uber, and this gym looks nicer than this one, or this has what I actually need. I’m going to hop in an Uber and drive 15, 20 minutes down the road because this one has a sauna. It’s just getting the job done, man.

People also overlook that food should taste good. You don’t have to torture yourself with plain grilled chicken, broccoli, and rice every day.

No! I was doing a hardcore steak diet for a long time. I was eating steak for lunch and dinner—grass-fed steak with a little bit of butter in the pan, and then salt. But when I was over in Europe, we found this cool restaurant that was only $15 for a steak. I’m like, this is insane! I was going in like, “Hey, I’ll take three steaks.” And they’re like, “Three?” Yeah, I’m going to eat two in front of you—so that’s 100 grams of protein from my lunch—and I’m going to take the other steak [to go]. That will be my dinner, which I will eat after the show after all the calories that I burn on stage.

People think that eating healthy is not supposed to taste good. It’s like, I just ate two steaks, which counted up to probably 500 calories (if not less because it was just steak and salt) and I had 100 grams of protein in there. I’m getting such great nutrition from this red meat, and it’s a low amount of calories. My body can handle that with the amount of intake I was doing in a day. And the thing is, too, just with how much I work out—once in the afternoon before a show, and then being on stage for an hour and 15, an hour and a half—I burn a shit ton of calories. That’s another thing, too, you just got to keep track of how much you’re burning, too.

Are you finding time for wellness when you’re on the road? Are you sleeping enough? Do you have a skincare routine?

Oh yeah, for sure. I have a skincare routine. I’m very weird about all that stuff. For me, I try to at least get a solid eight hours every single night, whether I’m on the road or off the road. It’s a necessity for recovery. And then skincare: serums and good lotions that I get from my dermatologist. I make sure to get vitamin C on my face in the mornings. I definitely have a very in-tune routine for the face, the body, grooming, everything. I take care of myself.

What advice would you give an up-and-coming musician who wants to stay in shape?

It sounds like a broken record, you hear it in motivational speeches all the time, but it’s not the destination. You have to fall in love with the grind. If you’re not in love with the grind and the daily habitual things, then in my personal opinion, you’re never going to make it. There’s always something to be done. The job is never finished. It doesn’t matter how good you get at your craft, right? There is always room for improvement.

My manager and I came up with this super cool quote. Happy, but never satisfied. I’m happy with what I get to do, but there will never be that fulfillment or satisfaction because the day you’re satisfied, in my opinion, is the day that you’re not expanding. You’re not growing, you’re not getting better. Everyone sees the shiny things. People see you on stage in front of 17,000 people, or people will see me on stage here for the first time in Houston in the middle of March in front of 70,000 people in a sold-out stadium, headlining it on a Saturday. But they see the end result of that, they don’t see everything behind the closed curtains of what it took to put this record together, what it takes to market it, what it takes to be overseas for a month for the first time. To go through that and to stick to a diet, it’s not always pretty.

You have to be obsessed. People are going to think you’re crazy at times. And also, have a small circle. Have the people that you love and trust around you, and honestly, don’t get caught up in the rat race. Don’t get caught up in the cool things—the scene. Focus on yourself and focus on self-improvement and invest in yourself. I got home from the UK, nine-hour flight, slept for one hour on the flight, was jet-lagged. What did I do? Came home, unpacked my bag, and went straight to the gym. Other people are like, that’s insane. Why don’t you just throw on a movie and relax? But I am highly competitive, so I’m thinking about the things that the other guy’s not going to do. That will help me prevail in the end.

Are there any little habits you’ve picked up recently that have really changed things for you?

I picked it up about two years ago, and I don’t spar or anything like that, but I love to hit the heavy bag. Boxing’s a big thing for me. I got the shoes, I’m huge on jump roping and all the footwork, agility and mobility that comes with that. I love it just because it’s just a good thing to know, to be able to hold your own if you ever need to, for whatever reason. Always de-escalate the situation, because normally the person that knows how to fight is going to try to de-escalate it, and the other person that doesn’t know how to fight is going to want to fight. Once you take that stance and you show them that you know what you’re about to do, most of the time they’re going to want to back down. But thankfully, I haven’t really had to use that much, but it’s just a great thing to know.

I listen to Jordan Peterson. I think that every man should have an inner monster inside of them, but have control of it. I am calm, I’m collected, I’m a nice guy, but that competitive nature is always burning inside me. It doesn’t matter if it’s sports, it’s music, Wii Tennis. I want to win.