Zach Bryan made his Grand Ole Opry debut back in April, singing a few songs that mean the most to him, including the touching tribute to his mom “Sweet DeAnn”.
And today, we’re getting a behind the scenes look at the night and hearing from Zach about just how much it meant to him:
“When I was 14, we started making these dumb songs up. Me and my buddies, sitting around. And I just, I never really expected to be a musician, ever. But I always wanted to write songs. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a songwriter.
The first time I heard about the Opry, was my grandpa used to watch it with me every time we were in his RV. The Opry was the biggest freakin’ stage that you could be on, ever.”
Of course, Zach was honorably discharged from active-duty in the U.S. Navy a few months ago before embarking on first headlining, sold-out Ain’t For Tamin’ tour.
Many of his family members have also been in the Navy, including his great-grandfathers, grandfather, uncles, his late mom DeAnn, as well as his dad.
He mentions in the video that being around so many people in the military growing up, including a lot of his dads friends, as well as his own service to our country, taught him how to be a good man.
It was during his time in the Navy that his career started to explode:
“I was in Florida for three months, cuz we were getting training, and so I was playing these songs, and I’d go outside and video ’em. And I would just put them out on my social media.
Which is such a strange thing now days that that’s even an option. And it blew up. More viral than I’d ever seen anything in my entire life. That’s when it happened. That’s when I got discovered.
And my friends were the only reason it happened, cuz they were the ones that were like, ‘We should record it’, or ‘I love this song, I love that song.'”
And Zach doesn’t take that (somewhat) overnight success for granted, either:
“I just was lucky to be able to do it. I felt lucky that people were even willing to listen. 12-year artists are just trying so bad for people to be able to hear ’em, and here I am with these people who were willing to listen to me and I was just blown away by that.”
We’ve said it before here and I’ll say it again, Zach is on the fast track to being the next big thing in country music. I mean, he kind of already is that.
He remains the ever-humble kid from Oklahoma despite it all, though. After clearly being overwhelmed with emotion following his performance that night at the Opry, he said that he just hoped he did it justice:
“That is, that’s a legendary stage. And I hope I did it justice. But besides that, I had a really good time, I think everyone else did. It really meant a lot to me that the Opry would let me sing those songs here, you know, ‘cuz the stage is full of such talent.
And that’s where I want to be someday, but I’m not there yet. So to be here to do that for everybody was just unbelievable. I cannot, can’t even put it into words.
It’s breathtaking, literally. My heart started beating like I’ve never felt it before. And besides that I just looked at everyone, looked at my sister, and I was like, okay, guess we gotta do it now, you know? It’s like, I can’t get over it. I’m on a high right now.”
I couldn’t be more excited for what’s next with Zach and his career… this might be the best video you watch all day:
And if you haven’t already, check out his debut performance here:
