He’s been everywhere lately.
It’s hard to imagine a more fascinating artist in today’s country music landscape than Zach Bryan. In a six-year span, the “Something in the Orange” singer has gone from recording his debut album, DeAnn, in a Florida Airbnb and scoring viral hits online to selling his publishing catalog for a staggering $350 million and, most notably, setting the record for highest-attended concert in U.S. history when he performed to a crowd of 112,408 at Michigan Stadium.
Though there’s no doubt that artists such as Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson and Cody Jinks were the forefathers of the current independent and alternative country renaissance we’ve currently been experiencing over the better half of a decade, there’s no denying that Bryan was the one who blew the door off the hinges, so to speak.
While Childers and Simpson, and in a way, Chris Stapleton, paved the way for the death of some of the worst country music had to offer in the genre in late 2010s, the Oklahoma native quite clearly paved the path for a more folk-inspired, songwriting-centric style of country that had been severely lacking over the past decade or so. Raw (sometimes even bad) production, introspective and emotional lyricism, Zach’s stripped-down style cuts straight to the hearts of his fans, connecting deep down on a level that you’ll rarely ever find on country radio.
One thing that’s become incredibly clear throughout the years is just how willing Bryan is to stretch himself sonically in terms of features. In the past four years alone, his list of collaborators includes but is not limited to the likes of Bruce Springsteen, John Mayer, Kacey Musgraves, The Lumineers, Noah Kahan, Sierra Ferrell, Bon Iver, The War and Treaty, Maggie Rogers, Charles Wesley Godwin, Kings of Leon, Noeline Hofmann, Watchhouse, Jack Van Cleaf, Gabriella Rose and John Moreland (before an online feud resulted in “Memphis; The Blues” getting removed and re-recorded with bandmate, J.R. Carroll).
The fact that the “I Remember Everything” singer has already collected a star-studded cast of features, including a plethora of Grammy winners, this early in his career is already impressive enough. With that being said, however, his pull becomes even more impressive when you see the artists he’s currently working with (or rumored to be) for future collaborations.
With this week’s new discoveries of Bryan currently working with the legendary Turnpike Troubadours and Lana Del Ray, here are all the artists the 30-year-old singer/songwriter has either teased collaborations with, worked with in the past or has been name-dropped by in some capacity.
Turnpike Troubadours
One of my (and many other alt. country fans’) dream come true.
While it’s become harder and harder to truly point to who is the best and subsequently the most influential in the vast, ever-expanding world of independent/alternative country, you can argue that the Turnpike Troubadours and Zach Bryan are two of the most important. And it looks like we’re finally getting a collaboration between the two very soon.
Taking to Instagram Tuesday night, Turnpike shared photos of frontman Evan Felker and Bryan together in the studio. Backed by Bryan’s 2023 single, “East Side of Sorrow,” which famously references the Red Dirt band’s improbable reunion the same year, they simply captioned the post:
“ZB & TT”
Given their history together, which includes Bryan’s aforementioned “East Side of Sorrow,” other references to the band on unreleased tracks like “Felker” and “Sunday Afternoon” and the 30-year-old singer/songwriter employing Turnpike on a plethora of shows over the past three years, it simply felt like a matter of time until the two giants officially collaborated on a song.
Lana Del Ray
In case you’re unfamiliar with her, Lana Del Ray, the 11x Grammy nominee, has made a name for herself in the alt. pop scene with massive records such as 2011’s Born to Die and its follow-up, Ultraviolence, in 2014. Falling somewhere in between indie, pop and alt-pop, all with an Americana aesthetic visually, she’s been inching her way into the country scene over the past few years.
Taking to Instagram last night, Del Ray would upload a video of the “I Remember Everything” singer in a studio in Massachusetts, along with a selfie of her, him and her husband, Jeremy Dufrene. In the caption, she’d confirm that they officially wrapped up the collaboration, which is presumably titled “Whale.”
“Whale, we finally got our song done. And that’s no Lie
not only that Zach, Sam and Shelby went to great lengths to get down to Massachusetts while we were up here working to bring back Mother whale and moonlight roll on… If you know, you know. Melinda and Doug are so aspirational. I also love their substack. I can’t wait to get down to say hi ourselves,
I just wanna say thank you so much to them for working with us to get something that our fam is gonna treasure forever.”
An unconventional pick for sure, but given Del Ray’s stellar songwriting ability, the collab is bound to be a hit among both fanbases.
Joshua Slone
A past tourmate and one of the hottest up-and-coming singer/songwriters today, Joshua Slone has been on fire as of late. In case you’re unfamiliar with him, he was opening up for Bryan last year without a single song available on streaming — instead catching a crazy amount of buzz on TikTok and social media in general — before finally dropping his stellar debut album, Thinkin’ Too Much.
Beyond touring with the Oklahoma native, Slone was featured on multiple Bryan teasers last year. These include playing guitar on early versions of both the Kings of Leon collab, “Bowery,” and “Madeline” with Gabriella Rose. Though he hasn’t posted any originals with Slone, it seems fairly unlikely that the two stellar songwriters didn’t sit down and pen a track or two at some point while touring together.
“Madeline”
@burnburnburners Madeline – Zach Bryan with Joshua Slone – prereleased version #zachbryan #madeline #fyp #joshuaslone #country ♬ original sound – burnburnburners
Gabriella Rose
If you’re a fan of Bryan, you obviously already know that he collaborated with Rose in July 2025 on “Madeline.” The non-album single didn’t make a ton of noise, relatively speaking. With that being said, however, it did aid the rising country star to earn her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 (#62). Most notably, it inadvertently led to the tipping point of Bryan’s beef with Gavin Adcock, when he told Adcock “f**k you” during a performance at Born & Raised Festival before jumping a fence in an attempt to fight him.
With the incident came speculation of whether or not Bryan’s stunt soured Rose’s working relationship with the “Plastic Cigarette” singer. While that seemed to be put to rest when he booked her seven separate dates on his current set of shows, With Heaven On Tour, the two all but confirmed the incident was water under the bridge back in January when he uploaded another brand new teaser of a collaboration with Rose, seemingly titled “Carnival Ride.”
@zachbryanfolk Carnival ride- Zach bryan&Gabriella rose {unreleased} #fyp #zachbryan #foryoupage ♬ original sound – zachbryanfolk
Creed
Another out-of-left-field group, Creed has expressed interest in collaborating with Bryan in the past.
In an interview with Billboard last year during Stagecoach, guitarist Mark Tremonti told the outlet that he’s a big fan of Bryan and Sturgill Simpson. Immediately after, frontman Scott Stapp built off his answer, noting that the “Motorcycle Drive By” singer has communicated with the band.
“We’ve been back and forth, kind of communicating with Zach for a while now. And so it seems like an organic thing is happening there. So, stay tuned on that one.”
A year and a half later, we’ve received no further updates on a Zach Bryan X Creed collaboration, so the status of this team-up is completely unknown.
Snoop Dogg?
No, that’s not a typo.
Though it’s been a long time with exactly zero updates, Snoop Dogg claimed that Bryan had sent him a song to put a verse on back in October 2024 during an appearance on the Today Show. Here, he’d say he was inspired by seeing him with Bruce Springsteen, in reference to a Rolling Stone interview between the pair around that time.
“Zach sent me a song I gotta put a verse on. I’m inspired seeing that with him with the Boss, with Bruce Springsteen.”
Looking back nearly two years later, it appears that Snoop may have gotten two of country music’s biggest Zac(h)’s mixed up, however. Though this is just a theory, I have reason to believe he misspoke and meant to say Zac Brown, given the fact that Snoop himself appeared on Zac Brown Band’s “Let It Run,” which was released in July 2025 as one of the lead singles off their most recent album, Love & Fear.
Only time will tell, but that seems to be the most logical answer to this unresolved storyline.
