Medium Build on Ending Engagement, Sobriety, Coachella Debut (Exclusive)

• Medium Build just released his EP takeaways, a collection rerecorded songs from his early career, in March
• He’ll make his Coachella on April 12
• The singer-songwriter opens up to PEOPLE about how he “lost the plot” last year — and how reevaluating his drinking has changed his career

Medium Build is following his own blueprint.

Nick Carpenter — the alternative singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name Medium Build — is finally living the dreams he long ago manifested, between his major-label deal and upcoming Coachella debut. But it took some serious work, on himself and on his music, to get here.

Carpenter recently released a new Medium Build EP, takeaways, which features re-recordings of three of his older songs. With its searing, self-aware, soul-dredging lyrics, “White Male Privilege” is a standout as Carpenter sings: All that they told me was, “Nick, make plans” / But I don’t want to mess them up again / So I’ll buy a house and I’ll move in / And I’ll have sex just to have kids / And I’ll get a job, work real hard / Hang rope lights in the backyard / Buy a minivan, drive across the state / Buy another house out on the lake / And everything will be alright.

That song was the first one Carpenter ever released as Medium Build.

“It’s kind of like my testimony, like, this is my DNA. I was raised by these religious, sort of do-right people. I grew up in that suburban American Dream thing — but I have bucked that,” Carpenter, 33, tells PEOPLE. “I’m single and don’t have kids. I think I wrote that song to make sure I didn’t, because at the time, I was engaged to a woman that I was good friends with, but it wasn’t really that thing.”

After ending the engagement, Carpenter wrote “White Male Privilege” — and then he wrote down a list of goals: “to be single, signed and sober.”

Adds Carpenter: “And it took 10 goddam years, but we are nearly there. I am all three of those things. And so this song feels like this beautiful thing to rerelease and have people get to know me”

A Georgia native, Carpenter was studying music at Middle Tennessee State University when he decided to move to Alaska.

“I just kind of hit the ‘f— it’ button and ended the relationship and dropped out of school,” he recalls of relocating to Anchorage. “It was a good place to start doing me; doing art for me and not art for acceptance.”

After honing his craft up north for years, Carpenter has found a solid fan base, touring with Holly Humberstone, FINNEAS and Lewis Capaldi, and releasing collabs with artists including X Ambassadors, Winnetka Bowling League and Dawes, as well as a boygenius’s Julien Baker, a former classmate. Over the years, he dropped several EPs and albums, and in 2023, he moved back to Nashville and signed with Island Records.

Along the way, “I found that as I got in touch with myself, my songs became more sensitive and less dark and more seeking connection,” says Carpenter, who is inspired by Nashville mainstays like Lori McKenna and Jason Isbell. “All I have is my honesty. It’s like, what does a 30-year-old White guy have to offer to the conversation? I can just admit when I f— up, be honest, maybe try to be funny and self-aware. Now my heroes are like David Sedaris. If I can be in my 60s and as sharp as he is, just talking about family, talking about society, talking about nature, that’s goals, right? I think honesty has just become the only metric. It’s like, ‘Is it honest? Is it scary to say out loud?’ [If yes,] probably should put it in the tune.”

Now those tunes are taking him to the desert. Last year, he attended Coachella as a fan and to watch his label-mates Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. This month, he’ll play both Saturday shows (on April 12 and 19).

“For Chappell last year, it was a huge game changer. She came out swinging, and I think it was a lot of people’s first time perceiving her, and so there’s a little bit of that, like, ‘Oh, we can really make an impression,’” Carpenter says. “We’re going high energy, come out swinging, just dress to impress, leave it all in the field type of stuff. I mean, that’s stuff my dad would say. ‘Set yourself on fire, son! Give them hell!’ That kind of s—.”

As he sets intentions ahead of his debut at the Indio, Calif., festival, Carpenter is aiming to be present. Last summer, he played other festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, but “I was trying to be chill. I didn’t want to look like the girl that couldn’t hold her excitement. So I think I tried to play it down last year,” Carpenter says. “And this year, I want to give my all.”

Carpenter admits he “lost the plot” last year. 

“I’m not that big of an artist, but in my scope it skyrocketed. We got a lot bigger, way faster than we had been growing, and then we had all the tours and we had all these festivals, and I think I was so scared of not being liked or so scared of what if it goes away, that I stopped having fun,” he says. “I was coming at it from a place of fear, and that led to me having a near mental breakdown on stage.”

In February, Carpenter felt that fear and dread “creeping back,” so he took a step back. 

“The only thing I’ve ever done that was good was when I showed up and was authentic. And the authentic me is the queer little theater kid that’s like, put on the crazy outfit, go hard, make people laugh, make people dance, make people feel,” says Carpenter, who is bisexual. “So this year I’m changing the recipe.”

For him, that meant reevaluating his drinking — and other aspects of his life.

“I recently got sober. I started taking medication for my mental health. I deleted Instagram. I hit the biggest wall, and I got to a point where I was resenting the music. I was like, ‘This is my dream. Why does this suck?’ I was kind of just a bitch to work with, I was snapping at people, and I wasn’t having fun,” Carpenter says. 

He realized that he was “getting drunk to try to feel something,” Carpenter says. “So I’ve finally looked it in the eyes. It was like, all right, I need to get healthy or else I’m going to burn out, then I won’t be able to do it at all.”

The singer has had a complicated relationship with alcohol over the years, but he’s more comfortable putting down the bottle now.

“I’ve spent 10 years taking breaks and kind of flirting with it and went as much as a year one time. I think I’m fully done. I think it’s like, hang my jersey up. I’m retired. I gave it hell, I did it at all. But now I don’t, honestly, it’s been almost two months and I don’t miss it,” says Carpenter, who found author Holly Whitaker’s book Quit Like a Woman helpful. “I was so stubborn about mental health meds, anxiety, depression, bipolar stuff. I was like, ‘No, it’ll steal my creative juices.’ It’s not like that at all. It’s totally just made every day easier. And I can still cry, and I can still get a boner, and I’m still curious. I’m like, ‘Man, why the f— was I so scared?’”

Lately, Carpenter has been setting boundaries in his music, too.

“Sometimes I journal a lot where I’ll write down random thoughts and some things don’t need to be shared — not because I wouldn’t share them, but I now get to be choosy about what I share. Sometimes you write something that’s so dark and you’re like, ‘I actually don’t want to sing that for the next year or 20 years of my life.’ And that’s where I’ve kind of learned. I think back in the day, I was just like, ‘You wrote it. Put it out,’” he says. “Now I’ll exhume it or I’ll exorcise it, so you write out the really f—ed up thing, write a terrible song or write something really hateful or maybe something really jealous or something really horny or whatever it is, and then you’re like, ‘Cool, let’s look at it for a little bit.’ Just strike a balance.”

Carpenter has also been thoughtful about his place in the queer community. 

On one hand, “it’s 2025 — what are we talking about? There’s so much bigger s— than a guy who likes boys and girls. There’s bigger issues; we got to fight for our trans family right now. There’s just so much scarier shit than who I sleep with,” he says.

Carpenter adds: “But I finally realized it’s not about me. It’s about the 10-year-old kid in Minnesota at the tractor pull who’s going to accidentally hear one of my tunes and be like, ‘Oh, he didn’t say she, or they used they.’ It just like it cracks the thing open. It was me listening to ‘Circle of Life’ and my moms saying, like, ‘Oh, Elton John is gay.’ I could hear the shame. And then me being like, ‘What does that mean?’ But also like, ‘Well, that guy sings awesome, and I love his songs. Gay people kind of slap though, right?’ All it takes is one thing. You just take one thing and be like, oh, these people are acceptable. So I have to put my ego aside.”

Carpenter has also been reminded of the importance of LGBTQ+ representation because he has a teenage family member who identifies as non-binary. 

“They have two CDs because they misbehave and they lose screen time, so then they have to listen to a CD player — and the only two CDs they have are mine and Chappell’s,” he says, “so I took them to the store the other day and bought them some other queer s—, and I bought them the Avenue Q soundtrack.”

Now as he gears up for another career milestone at Coachella, Carpenter’s goals are sincere and practical. 

“I don’t think anybody needs a record about a guy who’s depressed because he’s so popular and he’s tired of singing his songs. I think that you could have an interesting record about a guy who realizes he’s lost the plot and has to get sober and figure out his mental health,” he says. 

Carpenter adds: “I want to be able to play around. I want to have fun. I want to treat music like it’s the high school glee club, and it’s like you’re working with the punks one day, and then you’re working with the senior girls the next day, and it doesn’t matter. It’s not that serious. I got too up my own ass last year and now I’m like, goof around, make friends, put out stuff you like. That’s it. Don’t put out stuff you hate. Don’t cheapen it. Try to hold onto that.”