Tate Stevens

Country singer Tate Stevens, who came into the public eye when he was a contestant (and the eventual winner) on the second season of the television show The X Factor in 2012, was born Stephen Eatinger on March 1, 1975. His family moved from Texas to Belton, Missouri when Stevens was a child, and he grew up there, graduating from Belton High School in 1994. That same year he released a single, "It Sure Looks Good on You," and began touring (going by the stage name Tate Stevens) as the lead singer for a country band called the Dixie Cadillacs, who released a self-titled album with Calf Creek Records in 1996. Eventually Stevens left the band and returned to Belton to raise a family, working in construction, and then in the city's water and road repair departments. He returned to singing in 2005, working with Steve Koken and Robert Harmon in the band Outlaw Junkies, leaving the group in 2008 to form the Tate Stevens Band and releasing an independent album that same year. He auditioned for the second season of The X Factor, passed, and was the eventual winner of the competition under the mentorship of Epic Records' L.A. Reid, which led to a recording contract. Stevens began working on an album in Nashville in 2012 and that eponymous major-label debut appeared in April 2013.