What a refreshing concept.
It appears as though Zach Bryan took Travis Tritt up on his offer to have a face-to-face conversation at the Two Step Inn festival this weekend, sparking from the recent Bud Light controversy that has been sweeping headlines for the past few weeks.
The iconic beer brand recently partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and set off a firestorm of boycotts and backlash.
And for a quick recap in the country music world, two of the most outspoken stars against Bud Light have been Travis Tritt and John Rich.
While Rich announced that he would be removing Bud Light from his downtown Nashville bar, Redneck Riviera, Tritt also said that he would be removing all Anheuser-Busch products from his tour rider.
Tritt said he’s not alone in the country music world when it comes to removing his support of Bud Light, but that other artists are afraid to speak up about it – noting that he has no such fear:
Tritt’s tweets drew strong reactions from both sides of the debate (like everything online does these days), and one of country music’s newest superstars even jumped into the discussion.
Zach Bryan directly addressed Tritt in a tweet, saying that while he “doesn’t mind” Travis Tritt, he thinks that “insulting transgender people is completely wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be.” And he ended his tweet with one of Tritt’s most famous lyrics, saying that it’s “a great day to be alive I thought.”
He also called out Tritt again in a follow-up tweet, addressing a tweet from Travis that called for Jack Daniels drinkers to take notice of the whiskey company’s partnership with Ru Paul’s Drag Race for a “Small Town, Big Pride” campaign.
In a tweet to the other day, Travis said that he had been trying to reach out through Zach’s manager, and since they would both be playing at the Two Step Inn festival tomorrow just outside of Austin, Travis wanted to meet Zach for an in-person chat while they’re both in the same place:
And after taking quite a few days off from tweeting anything, yesterday Zach jokingly replied saying he just wanted to “be angry and tweet stuff”:
He also replied directly to Tritt’s tweet asking to meet, saying:
“See ya there boss!”
And according to a Twitter update this morning, it sounds like they had a great, and pretty lengthy conversation, in-person, “eye-to-eye,” as Zach put it.
He shared a tweet saying the two talked about their differences, and similarities, for an hour and a half last night, poignantly adding that “it seems the world did not end” as a result.
Imagine that…
He also said his dad almost cried during Travis’ set, asking at the end of the tweet:
“Can everyone stop being so weird.”
It’s almost sad that the concept of talking through political differences in-person is so novel these days, so I have to agree with him there.
But at the same time, it’s pretty cool to see these two hash it out and set a pretty damn good precedent for artists, and fans of country music, by handling it this way, and hell…
Maybe even learning something from each other in the process:
“Travis Tritt and me talked for an hour and a half last night, eye to eye.
It was nice to meet an old legend. We disagree on some things and agree on some things and it seems the world did not end.
My dad almost cried at his set. Can everyone stop being so weird”
Huge respect to both of these two for handling it all with class, dignity, and respect. You absolutely love to see it.
It’s a great day to be alive, indeed… let’s cue it up:
