Country star Riley Green is everywhere these days with a new album, new tour, a new Nashville bar, and the headlining entertainer slot at The American rodeo. But his heart’s forever in small-town Alabama.
When Riley Green was playing music in bars around his hometown in Alabama, he had business cards printed. They said “Riley Green, Country Music Singer” and had his phone number right under that.
But now, at 35, those old business cards don’t even begin to do justice to who Green has become.
C&I sat down with Green in his brand new Nashville bar Duck Blind – the steak biscuits are a must — to find out more about his path to Music Row success without ever actually making the move to Tennessee. First there was the immersion into what his family considered country music. Then there was the epiphany that he might be able to make a solid living at it, just like he’s doing now with his new 18-track album Don’t Mind If I Do.
“My granddaddy would say that George Jones, Roy Acuff, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams were country music. So my inspiration comes from learning how to play guitar by watching old men play those traditional country songs. It was an extremely slow build from there. I was literally framing houses for $500 a week and playing shows on the weekend, right up to the week before I signed a record deal,” he said. “Music was just a hobby for me and my granddaddy.”
And while so many country music hopefuls chase the elusive neon rainbow, it worked the other way around for Green. “I didn’t have any visions of commercial success. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it. I just didn’t think I was good enough. I was playing cover songs and they’d let me drink for free. So when record labels started coming, and you start thinking about having songs on the radio, that was a huge awakening.
“And I got tired of playing the same country cover songs at every show,” he explained, “and that’s when I started writing my own songs.” Then when he was 30, Green signed a Nashville record deal.
Since his debut single “There Was This Girl,” his unwavering commitment to keeping the country in country music comes through loud and clear in every song. Whether he’s covering a tune he loved in the past or writing one from the everyday muses of his rural life, the music always ends up sounding like something his late grandfathers would worship. Just like Green’s fans do.
Green’s method, he told C&I, is to start with a great title or a great hook, and then make that story work. Which is exactly what he did on “Jesus Saves” on his new album.
Because he didn’t see many homeless people growing up in Alabama, the idea for the song came to him when he started playing shows in big cities. “I’d never even been on a plane before I signed a record deal,” he said. “Spending time in cities and seeing somebody on the side of the road, we tend to lean towards thinking they’re on drugs or drinking. I started thinking about what somebody could’ve been through, and how that would make you feel more compassionate. That could’ve easily been me if a handful of things didn’t go right.” He wrote the song, he said, by painting a picture of someone in need trying to win you over with just what fit on a cardboard sign.
Besides his gravelly Alabama drawl, Green has a few other techniques that are essential to his songwriting. The most important of which is storytelling. “There are different things that happen melodically in country music, but as long as the song tells a story, it’s country music.”
His home in Alabama is just that for Green: home. It’s bigger now – he owns 680 acres – and has a lake, goats, pigs, and bass in the pond. “I’m attached to it. I’m in Pleasant Valley, outside of Jacksonville. That’s where I grew up, and I don’t wanna see it change from how it was when I was a kid. I can’t imagine getting inspiration from anywhere outside of Alabama. That’s why it’s more important now than ever for me to keep going home. When I’m back there, there’s a little store called Green’s Store down the street. The owner is E.L. Green and he’s about 94 years old. All the old men go over there and drink coffee and play dominoes. I usually don’t sleep well when I get home, so I end up there to drink coffee and catch up on all the gossip the old guys talk about. It always surprises me how little the conversations are about what I do,” he laughed.
While making music and playing shows all over the world — his ambitious Damn Country Music tour kicks off in early 2025 — coming home’s the only way Green knows to keep his roots right. “The amount of disconnect I get from my touring country music lifestyle as soon as I turn onto my driveway,” he said, “is what keeps me going back home.”
Click here to discover everything you’ve always wanted to know about The American rodeo—including when Riley Green takes the concert stage—but weren’t sure who to ask.
