Doesn’t mean fans have to buy it…
John Rich is defending Zach Bryan after he teased a controversial single last week – while also defending those who are vowing not to listen to his music anymore.
Zach is a pretty divisive figure these days, due more to his off stage antics than his undeniable songwriting talent. From his 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 and of course his public breakup and feud with ex-girlfriend Brianna Chickenfry, Bryan is no stranger to stirring up some controversy.
Most recently, though, Zach is turning heads after teasing an uncharacteristically political song.
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”
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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:
As the song has gone viral, many on the right have called for boycotts of Zach’s music and claimed that he ruined on his career while many on the left have declared that he’s their new favorite artist. (These people should probably do some research on Zach Bryan’s past before they decide to make him their poster boy…probably not a great representative of their cause).
And John Rich is defending the reaction from those on both sides of the political aisle.
In a post this morning, Rich once again gave his thoughts on the song and the calls for boycotts of his music:
“Zach Bryan has every right to record a song bashing law enforcement, and fans have every right to keep supporting his career, or not. Capitalism isn’t cancellation. Who knows, maybe there’s a large “anti law enforcement” wing of the country music fanbase. We’ll soon find out.”
Now, I’m going to go ahead and make my prediction and say that I don’t think the song is really going to do much to hurt Zach’s popularity. Chances are, most of his fans on the right aren’t fans of Zach for his political opinions, or his personal character (which is, as we’ve seen many times in the past, questionable at best). But I also don’t think he’s going to pick up a large group of left-wing listeners who suddenly became Zach Bryan fans because he criticized ICE in a song.
Zach is one of the biggest artists in country music right now, and love him or hate him, I don’t really think this song is going to change that, mainly because everybody who listens already knew what kind of person Zach was before he teased the new song and decided that they didn’t care.
