Wallen was born in Sneedville, Tennessee, on May 13, 1993, and he grew up in the Knoxville area. His father was a preacher who loved the bombast of hard rock, while his mother was a teacher whose tastes ran to contemporary Christian sounds. Wallen developed a strong interest in music at a very young age; he started singing in church when he was three years old and took up the violin when he was five. He later learned to play piano and guitar, but in high school his passion was baseball, pitching for the team at Gibbs High School in Corryton, Tennessee. He was good enough to earn offers to play college ball on a scholarship, but late in his senior year, an elbow injury put an end to his days as a pitcher, and he began considering music as a career. by Mark Deming