I guess Riley Green is not a fan of “Fish Hunt Golf Drink.”
Well, the song, that is… I think he actually enjoys doing all of those things in real life. The country star stopped by Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast in July, and he made sure to address the fact that he played no part in actually writing the somewhat controversial Luke Bryan’s song “Fish Hunt Golf Drink”.
Say what you want about Bryan, but he’s got over 30 No. 1 hits throughout his career. He’s found the formula, cozied himself into it, and keeps delivering music that he knows his fanbase is going to like. If the goal as a country artist is to make your fans happy, Luke Bryan is nailing it.
Bryan released a new song titled “Fish Hunt Golf Drink” not long ago and it’s the third single from his forthcoming album, Signs. The song is reminiscent of some of his previous hits that tackle similar topics, like “Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day” and “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset.” The kind of easy-listening, summertime, radio friendly hit he’s delivered over and over throughout his career, and at this point, that’s probably not going to change.
But Riley did unintentionally play a role in writing “Fish Hunt Golf Drink,” as he mentioned to Theo that Bryan loves to fish, hunt, golf and drink after the podcast host brought Luke up, and Von asked how he knew that. Well Theo, there happens to be a song out there now with that exact, meme-able title.
“Fish Hunt Golf Drink” has been labeled as “AI-slop,” among other things, and Green says that Bryan credits him with inspiring the track. Well, blames him…
Riley didn’t actually say those four words out loud, and he didn’t come up with the chorus or anything like that either. In fact, Bryan had sent Riley a text about trying to catch up soon, and the message that he sent Riley is what inspired the song:
“He gave me credit for him writing that song. Or he blamed me, one of the two. He texted me and said that we need to get together, it had been too long, and said ‘fish hunt golf drink.’
I was not there. I didn’t write the song. I had nothing to do with the song. I didn’t even send the text, or say, ‘Hey that’s a cool text, you should write a song.’ I had nothing to do with it. I want to say that while we’re here.”
Riley really wanted to make sure that people knew he had nothing to do with “Fish Hunt Golf Drink,” and I can’t say I blame him. It’s almost as if he wanted to distance himself from it as much as he could after disclosing that Bryan gives him credit for the song.
But Bryan wasn’t going to let Riley get off that easy…
He appeared on Theo’s podcast last week, and he addressed what Riley had said to Von a few weeks earlier, and he told a similar story to Riley, saying that he had sent Riley a text with that phrasing, and he confirmed what Riley had said in that he “didn’t write it.”
Bryan says he thought Riley was just joking since the song got so much negative attention, and he had somehow gotten attached to it:
“Riley got involved because I texted Riley. He goes, ‘Hey man, let’s get together.’ I said, ‘Hell yeah.’ I said, ‘Fish, golf, hunt, drink…’ And then we wrote the damn song. Riley didn’t write it… the damn thing got so much negativity that Riley was being funny that he didn’t want to be, ‘Don’t associate me with that.’”
Bryan continued, saying he knows how many people view him, as for many years of his career, he was “the tight jeans guy,” and he’s moved on from that, but now he’s the guy that “AI’d a song and wrote it”:
“I can’t do anything. Back when I wore tight jeans, I was the tight jean guy. So you go through all these phases. Well, I don’t wear tight jeans anymore. Now I’m the guy that somebody said that I AI’d a song and wrote it. It’s a fun song, man.”
I personally don’t care for the song, but it’s along the lines of a lot of music he has put out in his career… fun, catchy, not deep at all, but clearly there’s an audience for it. To each their own, but I guess we won’t hear Riley Green doing a cover of it anytime soon…
The full podcast with Bryan is available below, and even though I don’t necessarily care for a lot of his music, he’s super funny and quite entertaining:
