Well, this is going to be divisive…
Zach Bryan is many different things. To some, he’s one of the most introspective writers of our generation. To others, he’s a narcissistic sociopath. As one of the leaders of today’s songwriter-first movement, he’s undoubtedly one of the most important figures in music today, whether you like it or not.
It’s fairly safe to say at this point that, for better or worse, the “Something in the Orange” singer does not really care about the public’s opinion of him. From his highly questionable fence-scaling stunt last month in pursuit of Gavin Adcock to his long history of social media tirades against seemingly anyone who comes across his feed, Bryan is no stranger to stirring up some controversy.
Though most of the controversy typically stems from his careless antics on social media, he’s bound to turn heads with his newly teased song, “Bad News.”
Despite the whirlwind of headlines Bryan has found himself getting swept up in over the years, his politics have never been the focal point of most. This is, of course, given the fact that he’s mainly either been apolitical in terms of the current happenings in the world or has taken fairly moderate stances on things such as the 2022 Bud Light boycott, where he criticized those like Kid Rock who posted videos of themselves destroying their already-purchased cans of the beer.
Much in the vein of Eric Church, Bryan has always existed as a pretty moderate, maybe slightly left-leaning voice in the genre, especially on social issues. But let’s be honest, nobody is asking Zach Bryan about his views on foreign policy. Undoubtedly more moderate than the likes of Jason Isbell and Tyler Childers on the left and Jason Aldean and Justin Moore on the right, Bryan hadn’t penned anything overtly political until now.
In the newly-teased “Bad News,” Bryan begins the song with a fairly standard verse by his standards, opening the song up by telling his woman he woke up missing her before dropping a potential reference to his viral 2023 arrest and calling the cops “cocky motherf******.”
“Didn’t wake up dead or in jail
Some out of town boys been giving us hell
I got some bad news
I woke up missing you
My friends are all degenerates but they’re all I got
The generational story of dropping the plot
I heard the cops came
Cocky mother******* ain’t they?”
It’s the second verse of “Bad News” that is bound to raise a few eyebrows on both the left and right. Immediately, Bryan takes aim at the current ICE raids happening around the country, singing that they’re “gonna come bust down your door.” He then makes reference to his mentor and collaborator, Bruce Springsteen, later in the verse, noting that “The Boss stopped bumping” before proclaiming that the titular “Bad News” is the fading state of our country.
“And ICE is gonna come, bust down your door
Try to build a house no one builds no more
But I got a telephone
Kids are all scared and all alone
The Boss stopped bumping, the rock stopped rolling
The middle fingers rising and it won’t stop showing
I got some bad news
The fading of the red, white and blue”
Feeling somewhat out of left field from Bryan, given that he has yet to release an overtly political song yet, the teaser left me feeling kind of mixed. While I’m always one for artists to speak their mind about whatever they want, politically or otherwise, I can’t help but feel like the ICE line kind of comes out of nowhere, especially following the first verse. You have to read between the lines and even then, you’re still left wondering what Zach is really trying to say.
It’s undeniably an example of being topical, but I don’t quite think it lands, coming across as a quick check mark reference to something that’s currently controversial. And Zach knows that because he recently turned all the comments off his Instagram… brave. Also, the “Boss stopped bumping” because every one of his concerts turned into one-sided political rants about Donald Trump, and nobody is paying good money to hear that. It is certainly a stretch to insinuate that the country is fading because some people don’t like Bruce Springsteen anymore. All of the real issues dividing our country right now and you’re talking about Bruce Springsteen losing fans? C’mon… be serious.
Check it out here:
John Rich Blasts Zach Bryan For New Song
Naturally the song drew some pretty strong reactions on both sides of the political aisle – including from fellow country artist John Rich.
The outspoken conservative and one half of the hitmaking duo Big & Rich took to social media to give his thoughts on the song, blasting Zach Bryan as representative of the current state of the Nashville country music industry:
And he also compared Zach to the famously liberal Dixie Chicks:
It’s no surprise that John isn’t exactly a fan of the song. One of the most outspoken supporters of President Donald Trump, and one of the most outspoken conservatives in country music, John has long warned that country music was controlled by liberal New York and Los Angeles record executives – and called out his fellow conservative artists for being afraid to speak out.
During a recent interview with Shawn Ryan, John described what he saw as the culture shift in country music in the past decade or so:
“It was in the 20-teens, probably 2010, around in that range, when Obama became president, you saw Music Row, a lot of the original guys that were running those labels from back in the day, which were actually country music fans and they were mostly all patriotic guys and really talented and they were country music to the core.
They started replacing those people with people from LA, people from New York. They would bring in a New York guy to replace the Nashville guy at, for instance, RCA Records or something. And when the new guy comes in he would start changing the culture of that label, which bled all the way down into the artist, and it bled all the way down into the publicity departments, and what kind of songs you were allowed to cut and not cut, what interviews you were allowed to do, who you were allowed to interview with.”
And he’s also called out transplants from other states like New York and California for destroying the city of Nashville while taking advantage of the more conservative state:
“Nashville has been overrun for the past 15 years by liberals from other states. They come here because we have no state income tax, the city is fun, the people are nice…then they elect people just like the one’s from whence they came and destroy it. Like locusts.”
Safe to say we won’t be seeing a John Rich/Zach Bryan collab any time soon.
Gavin Adcock Breaks Down Altercation With Zach Bryan
Of course the new song isn’t the only controversy that Zach has found himself in the middle of recently.
The “Something In The Orange” singer made plenty of headlines last month following an incident at Born & Raised Fest in Pryor, Oklahoma, after Zach jumped over a barbed wire fence to confront fellow country singer Gavin Adcock due to some online beef.
Long story short, Gavin called Zach out after Zach aggressively responded to a 14-year-old girl on TikTok a while back, who complained that he didn’t stop and meet with fans in New York. To be fair, Zach spent time with fans 2 of the 3 nights. But then Gavin sat down for another interview with Rolling Stone and basically said that he didn’t think that Zach was a very good guy. And thanks to his relationship with Brianna LaPaglia, I believe there are quite a lot of people who would share that sentiment.
At Born & Raised, Zach joined Gabriella Rose during her opening set, and even hijacked the duet to call Gavin out from the stage… again, not the best look for Zach. He allegedly saw Gavin through a fence as he was leaving and stopped to confront him, hopping over the fence, before he was grabbed by security, and no punches were thrown.
Gavin continued to troll Zach by posting memes and poking fun about it online, and this week, he’s the guest on BunnieXO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, where she of course asked him about it and she said she was initially planning to ask him why he ran away.
She explained that after watching many of the videos that were posted about it online, she “never once heard” Gavin say that he wanted to fight Zach, and Gavin says that out of everything that happened that day, he was most upset by how Zach acted during Gabriella Rose’s set. He had come to the festival just to sing their song “Madeline,” though clearly think there were some ulterior motives behind that move too, unfortunately.
Multiple times during their performance, Zach interjected with comments about Gavin that completely distracted from the performance:
“Yeah, I just said that on another podcast, that I didn’t really appreciate how he reacted to a 14-year-old girls, ‘Why didn’t you sign my stuff? message. And telling her to ‘Get off my ***.’ Which is just a childish thing for a 30-year-old to do…”
To be fair, I don’t think Zach knew it was a 14 year old girl, but nevertheless, maturity isn’t exactly Zach Bryan’s strong suit.
Gavin continued:
“He decides to show up at my show in Oklahoma at the Born and Raised festival, goes onstage with Gabriella Rose, which he has a song with. Which, that was what pissed me off the most the whole day. The fence scaling stuff, the ‘Oh, I’m gonna fight you. I’m gonna kill you,’ type stuff didn’t bother me.
The fact that he took advantage of her set, somebody that was probably really excited about you coming up there and singing the song, and took that moment and screamed ‘Yeah, Gavin Adcock,’ three or four times the whole song.
She had to feel sick. Because I’ve only been super nice to Gabriella, I’m a big fan. I love the way she sounds, and that just that rubbed me really, really wrong that day.”
Respect… I found that to be the most egregious part as well.
Gavin went onto explain that Zach just “paced around” the festival grounds all day, and he alleges that Zach was “drunk as hell” and “throwing up in trash cans,” in addition to being rude to other artists and their crew there.
Gavin also said that he had a warning from his team that Zach would be there looking for a fight in an effort to ruin Gavin’s set, and he was prepared for the instigating long before it happened:
“He just paced around the inside of the festival all day, drunk as hell, throwing up in trash cans, going up to other artists treating them like s***, their crew s***, and just asking ‘Where’s Gavin?’ When I got to the festival that morning, they said, ‘Hey, Zach‘s coming today, he’s probably gonna try to start some s*** to get you to not go onstage, so just be aware of that.
And my crew is smart enough to go, ‘Yeah, he’s gonna try to pull some s***, so you don’t get to play this show for 10,000 people 30 minutes away from his house.’ So I had that on my mind all day, and when he pulled up on the other side of the fence, I was just chilling out there.
He started coming after me, so I was like, let’s see how mad I can make this guy. Zach Bryan fans commented on all my s*** all the past two weeks, and it’s only made my posts do better.
I probably went up 600,000 or 700,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, just from them being whiney b*******. and yeah, I did fuel the fire for that whole next week. I posted a bunch of s*** to keep him going. Whatever keeps them talking.”
Obviously, this is just one side of the story, though Bunnie asked if it was possible that if this beef continues, it could go too far. Gavin seemed to imply that he would continue to speak about it when prompted because he believes Zach deserves to be called out:
“How far how far is too far? I’m not really sure. I mean, I’m not saying anything. My opinions about Zach are an opinion of a quality person that’s got some meaning to it of like, yeah, you shouldn’t be doing that stuff, or you shouldn’t be acting that way.
You shouldn’t come and use a young girl’s set to have a public beef. It’s just s***** sense.”
Gavin added that they’ve never spoken before other than at the fence, and he never had intentions to fight him. He feels like the best revenge was headlining the show and leaving it all on the stage for the fans who came to see him:
“I ain’t never talk to him besides that interaction at the fence. I told him, when we first started arguing and raising hell at the fence, I said, ‘Zach, I’m not fighting you, dude. I’m about to go out here and play a show.’
But then he kept coming at me, so I was like, I’m just gonna stir this f***** up and see what he does. Instead of fighting Zach and getting arrested, the biggest win I could do is go out there and play the rowdiest, most bad*** show. I’m proud of my decision and not fall into his trap and ruin the show.”
I doubt we’ll ever hear such a detailed explanation from Zach’s side of things, but I do think it’s for the best that there was no physical altercation because no one wins in that situation.
Gavin’s right, though… I’m sure it only upset Bryan more that he played in front of such a big crowd right down the road from his hometown:
@xomgitsbunnie Chat, is Gavin Adcock right in how he feels about Zach Bryan? Drops tomorrow 🎙️👱♀️ @GavinAdcockMusic #gavinadcock #zachbryan ♬ original sound – Bunnie Xo 🪄
