Helping younger artists, just like his heroes helped him.
Riley Green released his new album That’s Just Me a couple weeks ago, which features a pretty lengthy 19-song tracklist. It also features collaborations with Hannah McFarland, Jake Worthington, Alabama’s Randy Owen, and my personal favorite, Brooks & Dunn.
Riley’s career has blown up over the last several years, and while all artists evolve, he hasn’t changed who he is fundamentally as an artist. Fans can always count on him to deliver really quality songs with beautiful lyrics and great production, and that’s what he delivered here.
In addition to consistently putting out great music, Riley is an artist who basically stays on the road year round, and I think that has a lot to do with his current success. He’s spent years and years putting on shows all over the country, earning fans by delivering concerts that never disappoint, and I think that organic connection with his fans is paying off in a huge way now.
To give you an example of just how popular he’s become, Riley earned his highest charting album ever and first ever top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart as That’s Just Me came in at #3 on the all-genre chart.
And his focus on his fans has never changed, despite how famous and successful he is now. In fact, he gave a great example of how he’s maintained that connection with his fans during an interview on the Zach Sang Show, he talked about why he’s made it a point to get to know, and work with, his openers.
Of course, he and Ella Langley famously teamed up for two hit singles “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do,” and fans are still convinced they had more than a professional relationship, but I digress…
Riley explained that he believes that partnership worked because fans could sense the “authenticity:”
“There are a lot of collaboration, sadly enough, that are manager to manager, record label to record label. Like, okay, we need to get these two people together and merge their fan bases, and there’s been some great songs come out of that… something about country music, I feel like there’s an authenticity that fans can see pretty quick.”
Zach pointed out that there are plenty of times an opener could never even see the headliner while being on tour with them, and Riley certainly has not taken that approach. He performs with his openers often, and he remembers just how excited fans would get when he and Ella were on the road together and fans got to see them sing together every night, which is pretty rare for such a big song, honestly.
It just worked out that way, but it definitely helped launch both of their careers to a new level:
“I’ve got songs of people I’ve never performed with them. You know, that’s tough. I mean, cause what a great moment for fans when they have a song they really enjoy from two artists, maybe they love one, one’s new to them, whatever it is, and they get to see it.
I bring up Ella a lot because we had ‘You Look Like You Love Me’ and ‘Don’t Mind If I Do,’ and she was on tour with me. So we got to play those two songs together every night for fans, and I mean, I could feel the excitement when she would walk out sit on a stool and we would play ‘Don’t Mind If I Do.’
That doesn’t happen often, so it’s so great that again I’ve got a song with, Hannah, she’s out on the road with me. and I had a song with Jake while he’s out is a really cool thing.”
Riley explained that he thinks it’s important for the openers to get to know him, and for him to introduce his fans to them, because that’s what people like Dierks Bentley, Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley did for him.
In fact, Brad had posted a cover of Riley’s fan-favorite song “I Wish Grandpa‘s Never Died” when it started to go viral, and even started inviting him out to sing it with him during his set every night, even though Riley was just the first of three on that tour and only had a 25-minute set.
It’s cool that he’s continuing to help other up-and-coming artists, and Riley has songs with two of his openers on his aforementioned new album in Hannah McFarland, Jake Worthington, which he sings with them now:
“The same reason you need friends in life, I guess. You’re out on the road with these people all the time. I’ve done tours where I was the opening act and didn’t speak to the headliner, you know. Nothing against them, I assumed everybody’s pretty busy, and now that I’m in it, I know how busy they are. But I also know what it does to an opener when it’s the other way around.
I know what it was like for me when I was on my first major tour opening for Brad Paisley, I was first at three. It was me, Chris Lane and Brad Paisley.
And I wrote ‘I Wish Grandpa‘s Never Died,’ and I walked past the green room and my band is in there listening to something on the phone. I heard it, and it was that song, but I couldn’t forget who is singing it. It was Brad Paisley. He posted a video of him singing that song because he liked it, asked me to come out during his set and perform that song.
And I played 25 minutes, I played five songs on that set. and I remember what that meant to me, and the moments I got to spend with him. And Dierks was so great, and Jason Aldean was great, and Luke Bryan was great. You remember those guys that, when they walked past the tour bus, they stopped and said hello.”
The fact that someone on Riley’s level can look back and remember how others treated him on his way up says a lot, and I think it’s that exact thing that sets country music apart and makes it so special:
@zachsangshow @Riley Green on the importance of working with his openers on tour #} #rileygreen #ellalangley #country #zachsangshow #fyp ♬ original sound – Zach Sang Show
The full podcast episode is available below.
