Chartbreaker: How Paddington, Sobriety and a ‘Loosie Song’ Resulted in Medium Build’s Breakthrough

Chartbreaker: How Paddington, Sobriety and a ‘Loosie Song’ Resulted in Medium Build’s Breakthrough The singer-songwriter made his Billboard debut in December with "Last Time," which has now spent six weeks on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart. Carpenter and his dog Huey.Elizabeth Marsh Trending on Billboard As Nick Carpenter looked back on the biggest year yet for his solo music project Medium Build, he also admits that, before 2025 concluded, he had “hit this giant spiritual wall.” Carpenter, 34, had been on a three-year hot streak: after years of refining his sound and grinding out gigs, a deal with Island/Slowplay in 2023 had yielded a major-label debut, prime festival gigs (including at Coachella) and enviable touring opportunities (including an opening slot on Tyler Childers’ 2025 tour). Yet the singer-songwriter felt himself wearing down as 2025 came to a close. He needed a break. “From 2023 to 2025, we were just saying yes to everything,” he tells Billboard . “It doesn’t feel too long ago that I was afraid that it was all just a flash in the pan, and that I had to take advantage of different opportunities. But then eventually you’re like, ‘Well, I’m gonna burn out.’” To that end, the past month has played out perfectly for Carpenter - who’s been able to decompress at home in Nashville at the same time as a recent single has become a surprise, momentum-building hit. “Last Time,” a lilting, lightly funky slice of romantic melancholy, gave Medium Build his Billboard chart debut in December, and in six weeks has climbed to No. 30 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart. The ode to a literal kiss-off (“It might be the last time that we kiss/ You always take for granted what you have until it’s missed,” Carpenter laments on the chorus) resulted from a chance run-in during a trip to London last spring. “I was there to see some friends, and write - and, mainly, eat scones,” he quips. “I went to Paddington Station, to try and find that sculpture of the bear, and I ran into an ex. She doesn’t even live in London - I just saw her riding a bike past me, and it was a total jump scare. It brought up all this stuff, and hit me in a weird place. I thought I was over [the breakup], but I guess there were some things that I hadn’t put away.” Carpenter has spent a decade untangling his insecurities since forming Medium Build in 2015. A Georgia native who grew up in a religious household and eventually moved to Nashville to study songwriting, he began absorbing some of the sonic and lyrical tropes of modern country, while also sporting an R&B-adjacent croon, as a pavement-pounding indie artist. “Everything felt so raw and unfiltered,” says Kathryn Callahan of LoyalT Management, who began working with Carpenter in January 2020 after stumbling upon a video of him playing guitar for another artist and tracking him down. “He doesn’t write with long metaphors, but...

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