Riley Green

[00:00:00] We are here with Riley Green. We're here ahead of the Country Fest in North Lawrence, Ohio. And you said you played this festival before, right? Yeah, I didn't really just recognize some things coming in, but the promoter told me

[00:00:27] this is our fourth year, so we're tied with Justin Moore for doing it the most times. So I guess we'll have to come back and do it one more. Just to beat him, yeah? Yeah. How is it, I know you've been on your last rodeo tour,

[00:00:38] how is it playing arenas versus playing festivals? Do you have a preference or? It's definitely different. I mean, the biggest learning curve I've had was doing stadiums with Luke Combs last year. You know, that's such a big room. It's like to try to reach the people up in

[00:00:53] the top, you know, in the very highest seats. It's tough. You got to fill up a big stage. But arenas I've always kind of felt pretty comfortable in. We've done those arena tours for a few years

[00:01:02] now. And festivals are just, the only hurdle you have is dealing with how drunk people can be by the time you get on stage if you play late enough. You know, it's like we talked about this is four

[00:01:13] days of country music. People are pretty worn out by the last day. Yeah, for sure. I know I am. But you also, you've been on tour with Tracy Lawrence. How was that? I think y'all just wrapped up that tour.

[00:01:23] Tracy was open for me on my last radio tour. A girl named Ella Lane was on that tour. That was great. It was awesome, man. I'm such a big fan of Tracy and all that 90s country era. He's got a lot of

[00:01:36] hits. It's cool to watch him play 45 minutes of hit songs. Yeah, I was at Ascend for the Tracy Lawrence and Friends. I think we posted your duet when y'all did Time Marches On. That was really cool to see because that's just such a classic song.

[00:01:50] The only bad thing about having him on tour with me was I couldn't do any of his songs with him because he already played them all. I think we did Shoulda Been a Cowboy or something during my set.

[00:01:59] Tracy's great. That was a cool night at Ascend. That was a cool thing to do for CMA Fest. It kind of felt like we were somewhere else. Yeah, Tracy's just such a good guy. He had great things to say about you too. Oh, he's great.

[00:02:10] I asked him about it. Speaking of the last rodeo tour, last year you released your album, Ain't My Last Rodeo. I want to talk about the title song to that one for a second just because that's your solo right and it's such a personal song. How

[00:02:24] does it feel writing such a personal song and then putting it out into the world and seeing how it affects other people? Have you gotten a lot of reaction to that one?

[00:02:32] Yeah, it comes really natural to me. When I started writing, I was in my early 20s or even late teens in college. I just did it kind of as a hobby. I never thought anybody would

[00:02:43] really hear the song. Sometimes I'd play them at shows if somebody requested them. Then obviously when you go to record them, that's a little different. Numbers on the Cars is one I wrote

[00:02:50] about my granddaddy and having Alzheimer's. It was a really personal song. I saw that one and had one of those reactions from people where it wasn't a giant hit song by any means, but people that

[00:03:00] could relate to it or been through something like that really latched onto it. I got a lot of fans from that. I've always kind of tried to write about real life and things that I've learned

[00:03:09] in family. It's always really gone over well with fans. They feel like they make my stories about their own life somehow. My Last Rodeo is kind of the same thing. It's a song about my granddaddy and

[00:03:22] his last few weeks and something he told me. He passed away in 2011, so it stayed with me a long time. I wrote the song last year. Yeah. Another one that was a solo right for you was Jesus

[00:03:38] Saved. It seems like whenever you get in a room by yourself, you just write the sad-ass country song. I think that's what I'm drawn to anyway. I think that's something that's special about country music is the storytelling. I think musically it can go a lot of different

[00:03:54] ways, and it certainly does, but that's what I don't want to see go away is the story and trying to make somebody feel some kind of emotion. I thought that song had a really great message

[00:04:03] that you really don't know what somebody's been through. Is that one inspired by anything true, or did you just come up with that one? It's just inspired by thoughts riding down the road.

[00:04:15] Seeing the same guy on the same street corner every time I passed in Nashville, Tennessee was what kind of gave me the idea. The thought of trying to win over people driving by with just

[00:04:25] whatever you could fit on a piece of cardboard was pretty crazy to me. I tried to put it in a way that people could take it and hopefully be a little more compassionate and understand that

[00:04:36] message in a good light. I think it turned out great. It's a really special song. Yeah, that's a really good one. I like that one from that album. Another one that's really kind

[00:04:44] of seems like it's taken on a life on social media is Worst Way. You knew what you were doing with that one, didn't you? I don't know that I really knew to what extent I was doing it.

[00:04:56] Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I can have two songs I wrote by myself that are that far apart, Junior Saves and Worst Way. I don't write a lot of love songs. I never really have.

[00:05:06] It certainly seems to be something I need to do more of. I had a song I wrote years ago called When She Comes Home Tonight. It was kind of that sexier love song type thing. It always did really

[00:05:19] well. It still streams well today. Thinking what that song did that worked, I wanted to do something that was similar to that. I had that title Worst Way and wrote it. I could have never imagined

[00:05:29] what that song would turn out to be. Yeah, you see all the TikToks and all that, the women saying that they're calling their husbands, telling them we have to leave our kids at home. I don't have TikTok, but I've certainly heard of it. Yeah, there are a lot

[00:05:41] of videos. So you don't use TikTok at all? No, no. My social media guy helps me out with that. I quit with Instagram. That was the last thing I tried to learn how to use. I think I almost

[00:05:53] have it, so I'm going to stop there. Twitter is the one that I... We're the same age, so Twitter was the big one when I was getting into that. Then Instagram came along and it got

[00:06:03] popular, and I got kind of lost. TikTok is fun to scroll. Now it seems like there are so many artists who are getting their start from TikTok. It's just kind of crazy to see how you have a

[00:06:14] song go viral on TikTok and you've never played a show, but all of a sudden you have 100,000, a million fans. Yeah, it's crazy. It's obviously very useful to have these avenues of social media

[00:06:26] to be able to put music out and stay in contact with fans, especially during 2020, which I think probably made a lot of that stuff happen. It was, yeah. I just don't need another thing to

[00:06:34] be scrolling on my phone. I completely understand that. Carl's really popular on Instagram. How did he become such a celebrity? I think it's just because he's a weird, cute-looking dog. He's shaped strange. He's all ears and short legs. His personality has a lot to do with it. He's

[00:06:51] a strange cat. I've had a lot of hunting dogs, labs. I never thought I would have a Corgi, but he's a Corgi Blue Heeler and he's just the star, man. Everybody shows up wondering where

[00:07:02] he's at. Yeah, and that's what we asked when we got here. How long have you had him? He's almost two. I got him as a puppy, so I've had him for a year now. I've had him for a while and he's become

[00:07:11] a star. I want to talk a little bit about your current single, Too. Damn Good Day To Leave. That one seems to be doing really well. What's the reaction been to that? Do you have any... I

[00:07:20] know that was a co-write with Eric Dillon and maybe a couple others. It was Eric Dillon, Nick Walsh, and Jonathan South. Yeah. A fun breakup song, if there is such a thing. I certainly have

[00:07:32] a lot of tear-jerking type songs, so it's cool to have something a little more lighthearted. It was a fun song to write, really fun song to play live. Having a song on the radio, you can

[00:07:41] always see it grow week by week. It's been fun to watch. What's the reaction been like to that one? It's a jam, man. It's a beers in the air kind of song and maybe even one of the guys sing a little

[00:07:53] louder than the girls. You probably don't have that with many of your songs, do you? It's certainly not worse ways. It's the opposite of that. That's what I told her. You can write

[00:08:03] a song like that and people are throwing bras at you. I'll sing a song like that and I get a restraining order. I'm learning what works. It's a little bit out of my normal box. I'd be

[00:08:16] writing love songs, but I'm certainly trying it. How does it feel when you have all these girls that are throwing their bras and all that on stage? I always think about my mom because she

[00:08:26] monitors my social media pretty heavily. She sees all the crazy comments. Then I just think about my mom. She's just like secondhand embarrassment. She's been at the show. She sees all of it. She's

[00:08:40] got a good sense of humor. There's some wild folks out there, man. I'm glad they show up and come to the shows. They're passionate. I'm always surprised. You've been teasing new music on

[00:08:50] social media. What do you have in store? I know you just released your EP not long ago. We're in the studio. I'm actually recording the last few songs on my next album this week. We're going to

[00:09:02] put some new music out in the fall. I know you've been around 2018 is when you came along, so you don't have a ton of albums. Are there songs that you have released that you had either wished

[00:09:11] they'd been a bigger hit or you recorded it thinking that it was going to be a massive hit and then it just never really took off like you thought it should have? It's kind of the opposite.

[00:09:20] I had recorded 20, 25 songs before I signed a record deal in 2018. I toured for 10 or 12 years. I've got songs like Georgia Time, Bury Me in Dixie, Outlaws Like Us. These songs that just

[00:09:34] don't go away. When She Comes Home Tonight is another one that I recorded before I even had a record deal. It just kind of changes your mindset on what's a hit. There Was This Girl

[00:09:43] was my first number one on country radio. I Wish Grandpa Never Died peaked at 11 on the country charts. That's arguably the biggest song I have. Hell of a Way to Go is a giant song for me. It

[00:09:52] still streams outrageously well today. It's never been played on radio once. For me, a hit is a song that people sing in the crowd. I'm always surprised that there's pretty deep cuts that seem to be

[00:10:05] those songs. That's what even Tracy was talking about when I was talking to him a while back. Paint Me in Birmingham was never number one. To the fans, it was. That's his most famous song. He

[00:10:17] said it'll be his closer till he dies. Do you think it's harder now? Maybe since you got your start in the streaming era. Is it harder to judge how a song is doing when you're not basing it on

[00:10:32] album sales or even radio play? It's never been hard for me because I see it every week. We played three or four shows a week for the last 15 years. That's how I always decided how I was

[00:10:44] going to write songs. I'd try something out and say, this line worked or this type of song works and that doesn't. They'll let you know pretty quickly. I played I Wish Grandpa Never Died

[00:10:54] for the first time in Georgia. Two weeks later, I headlined a festival in Virginia or West Virginia. They sang every word to it. It wasn't even out. I didn't even record it. I had a different single

[00:11:05] at Country Radio. They'll tell you what they like and what works. That's why I like to play so many new songs and shows. You find out beforehand. We like it too, so we can post

[00:11:15] those videos and get content out of it. Do you go into the studio or write songs thinking about your live shows? Or do you try to build around what you have? Sometimes I think about what's

[00:11:26] missing. Sometimes I think about what I need more of. Most of the time, I'm just writing about things that have happened to me or something I'm passionate about. Sometimes you come up with a

[00:11:34] hook that you think is just a clever way to say something. I rarely write a song the same way twice. I think every song has a different goal from the start. You certainly can't have people crying for

[00:11:46] 90 minutes at a show, so you've got to find ways to write songs that are a little more up-tempo and happy. It's just trying to fill that 90-minute set and keep people interested and engaged.

[00:11:58] Going back to the whole arenas versus festivals, do you change up your set list? Do they need to be more high-energy for festivals? A little bit. That being said, I'm not that high-energy anyway.

[00:12:10] I've always found that me coming out and sitting on a stool and playing Which Grandfathers Never Died or Hellboy to Go Acoustic is the biggest moment in my set. Usually, the worst way is to

[00:12:19] start to rival that a little bit. I don't try to steer too far away from what's got me here. I'm not really the dance-around guy. There's plenty of those out there,

[00:12:28] and I think my thing is more of trying to tell a story and trying to make somebody cry if I can. We saw you at Rock the South last year down in your home state. On that festival,

[00:12:38] I don't remember which day you played, but they had Cody Johnson and then Chris Stapleton right after. It was just really interesting seeing the two different styles. Cody's so high-energy, and Chris just stands there and sings like a motherfucker. It's just interesting to see how

[00:12:53] different artists handle and play in different environments. I wish I could sing like Chris. I probably wouldn't take one step. I'd probably stand in the exact same spot the whole show. I unfortunately have to move around a little bit, but at the same time, I just think having

[00:13:08] blinders on in this industry is a little bit helpful to figure out what works for you and really stay focused on what the fans seem to be appreciating and liking and just try to do as much

[00:13:17] as you can. That's something we talk about all the time too, is just authenticity. Fans can see and are a lot smarter than a lot of times people give them credit for. They know that when you're trying

[00:13:27] to be somebody that you're not on stage. You recently played Red Rocks. Is that right? Yeah, three weeks ago. How was that? Was that kind of a bucket list show?

[00:13:34] We had a sold-out show at Red Rocks. The first time going over there, it lives up to the hype. You always hear about that place, and it's pretty special. A lot of family and friends

[00:13:42] got to come to that show. It was a little cold. I think it was like 35 when I went on stage, but the crowd was great. It was bigger than I thought. I thought it was more like five or six

[00:13:50] thousand, but it's ten thousand seats in the theater. It was cool. Are there any other venues or any other shows like that that are on your bucket list that you want to cross off? That was really the one. Obviously doing the Ryman and some of those more like...

[00:14:05] I've never done Blue Bird. I always thought it'd be cool to go do an acoustic show there, but I'm just glad people are still showing up. Right. Well, on that note, I think we'll wrap it up and let you get out and play your set here

[00:14:16] in a few minutes. Excited to see it. Appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.