Riley Green says he didn't buy into any concerns about having a sophomore slump when he made his recently released second full-length album, "Ain't My Last Rodeo."
Far from feeling the weight of expectations, Green found himself able to simply appreciate his success and feel excited to be able to create the next musical chapter in his career.
"I really just try to take a step back as often as I can and look at how fortunate I am to have a career in country music, first of all," Green said in a late-January phone interview. "And the fact is I get to make a record of songs that I wrote about how I grew up, my family and my home town in Alabama.
"I mean, I'm in such a great place, it's hard for me to feel a lot of pressure," he said. "You just want to try to continue to entertain fans and really just evoke some kind of emotion when you write songs." Green plays May 18 at Hayden Homes Amphitheater in Bend.
What has also helped Green to stay focused on his music and removed from some of the competitive aspects of a country music career was a move back to his home state of Alabama a couple of years ago.
"It helps us a lot that I don't live in Nashville the majority of the time. It's hard to have blinders on (in Nashville)," he said. "It's so easy to get distracted by what some other people are doing and having success doing. I think the best thing you can be right now is different, have your own sound and things to say. It's a little easier for me to do that now that I live in Alabama because, you know, there's not any charts down there."
Growing up in the Alabama town of Jacksonville, he spent plenty of time, not only with his parents and siblings, but he grew close to his two grandparents, Buford and Linden.
Buford, in particular, was a big country music fan and introduced his grandson to legendary artists like Roy Acuff and Merle Haggard. Green would join his grandpa for front-porch jam sessions with Buford's musician friends. Eventually, people started coming to listen, and the idea was hatched to build a stage on the property where performances happened every Friday. That's where Green learned to perform for audiences.
Now 35, Green started writing songs in his early 20s and getting gigs around the Southeast. He posted songs online and self-released several EPs, gradually building a following large enough to allow him to make music a full-time venture. His popularity as a live act got him noticed by country record labels Nashville, and he signed with Big Machine Records in 2018.
His career has been on a fast track ever since, as he's been keeping music coming at a steady pace – with three EPs – a self-titled effort, "Outlaws Like Us" and "In a Truck Right Now" — arriving in 2018, followed by the "Get That Man A Beer" EP in 2019. Material from those three releases made up Green's 2019 debut album, "Different 'Round Here." Next came the 2020 EP "If It Wasn't For Trucks" and the "Behind The Bar" EP in 2021 and a series of singles in 2022, including his collaboration with Thomas Rhett on the song "Half Of Me." Those all led into the release last fall of "Ain't My Last Rodeo," which is being followed in quick succession by an EP, "Way Out Here," which was released on April 12 and features six new songs plus "Damn Good Day to Leave," Green's latest single from "Ain't My Last Rodeo."
Along the way, Green notched a top five country single in "There Was This Girl" and a top 15 hit in "I Wished Grandpas Never Died." Now his lead single from "Ain't My Last Rodeo," a new version of the song "Different 'Round Here," which features a guest vocal from Luke Combs, has cracked the top 5 on "Billboard" magazine's Country Airplay chart.
Laced with references to actual places, people and experiences, "Ain't My Last Rodeo" is in character musically and lyrically with Riley's earlier releases, with songs that range from spare acoustic ("My Last Rodeo") to robust mid-tempo tracks like "Different 'Round Here" and "They Don't Make 'Em Like That No More."
"I try to write songs about things I know and how I grew up and how I see the world. It's been something that has worked for us, so stylistically I don't try to change too much from that," Green said. "But you also want to try to appeal to a bigger audience. As things grow, you start playing in different countries and all over the United States. So I tried to put a lot of different types of songs on my (album), which I think we did."
Songs from "Ain't My Last Rodeo" figure to make up a significant part of Green's headlining shows this year.
"One thing I really enjoy is playing the new songs at my shows and seeing what the reaction is from fans," he said. "So there will probably be a lot of kind of experimenting with new songs on this tour and where they fall in the set, really just seeing what songs raise their hands. I love to let fans decide that sort of thing, so I'm excited about getting out and playing some of these songs in front of some of these fans on this headline tour."
