Country music singer/songwriter Zach Bryan shot up the charts doing things his way. The Oklahoma native has sold over a million albums and 10 million singles since he began releasing music in 2019, and he’s done so by first going viral on his own.
Some have noted that his music does not revel in country music cliches, is introspective and self-reflective, and rings with sincerity and authenticity. Let’s take a closer look.
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Humble Roots
Zachary Lane Bryan was born on April 2, 1996, in Okinawa, Japan, where his Navy father was stationed at the time. The guitarist and singer grew up in Oologah, Oklahoma, a small town with a population of about 1,200 (and one stop light) that is located approximately 30 miles north of Tulsa. Bryan was both a wrestler and on the student council in high school, and he wound up enlisting in the Navy when he was 17, three years after he started working on his own songs.
Bryan served as an active-duty member of the U.S. Navy until he was 25, when he was honorably discharged. He reached the rank of Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class. He had been stationed in Washington and Florida, and he also did tours in Bahrain and Djibouti. During his time in the service, the future country star worked on his material initially for fun as he built up his repertoire and songwriting chops. The spare time was well-spent as his first two self-released albums from 2019 and 2010 featured a combined total of 30 songs.
Viral Fame
Bryan’s first album, DeAnn, was named after his late mother. It was released on August 19, 2019, and eventually achieved double platinum sales status. He had already started loading iPhone videos of his performances onto YouTube since 2015, with “Heading South” eventually becoming a viral hit. He wrote the song behind his Navy barracks and it was included on his debut. It racked up over 30 million plays on Spotify, and its official single release sold 2 million units.
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Of his first album, AllMusic wrote, “Zach Bryan’s debut doesn’t precisely feel like a demo, but it isn’t far removed from that territory, either. Performed largely by Bryan accompanying himself with an acoustic guitar, DeAnn is unadorned and intimate, a record that demands to either be listened to intently or without a lick of concentration.”
Bryan reportedly wrote DeAnn in two months and recorded it in a Florida Airbnb; he played his first concert in Medford, Oregon, in October of that year. His second album, Elisabeth, arrived fairly soon after, in May 2020. It was recorded in a barn behind his Washington home, with the song “Oklahoma City“ hitting No. 34 on Billboard‘s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
By April 2021, Bryan had performed at the famed Ryman Auditorium and Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and was on his way to signing with Warner Records. In October of that year, he was honorably discharged from the Navy in time for his first national tour, dubbed the “Ain’t for Tamin’ Tour.”
Major Milestones
Bryan’s major label debut, American Heartbreak, emerged on May 20, 2022, and debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard albums chart. It featured 34 songs, a wider range of instrumentation, guest artists, and a two-hour run-time. The album produced a half-dozen singles, the fifth of which, “Something in the Orange,” shot to No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart and would go on to sell 6 million units in America, over a half-million in Canada, and nearly 300,000 in Australia. The song was also nominated for Best Country Solo Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
On Christmas Day, 2022, Bryan released the live album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks), and in May 2023 he won the Academy of Country Music Award for New Male Artist of the Year. He released his self-titled fourth album on August 25, and it hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 while “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves, also hit the top singles slot. The 16-song album was recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in New York City.
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Of his fourth album, no less heady a media outlet as Pitchfork pondered, “Why does Zach Bryan feel like a breath of fresh air? For all his high-stakes musings on life and love and death, sung in a gruff, boyish howl that makes even just the word ‘child’ sound like a stifled sob, Bryan has a lot of fight in him.”
The New York Times declared, “It is a refreshingly unpretentious album, with songs that take the shortest path from feeling to words while also deploying some alarmingly lovely turns of phrase.”
Moving Forward…
Bryan is a prolific songwriter and enjoys performing, so he’ certainly has his career cut out for him’s well-positioned to continue challenging established fans and turning on new ones. He seems to be constantly working on new material, and doesn’t hesitate to collaborate, working in tandem with the likes of Maggie Rogers, the Lumineers, and Bon Iver. He appears to prioritize staying true to his roots (which is smart since that characteristic seems to have made a big difference to his loyal fanbase), and he also seems to genuinely appreciate all of the success he’s had. Bottom line for Zach Bryan: the songwriting comes first, or else he has nothing to work with on stage.
In a profile of him by The New York Times in September 2022, he intimated that he wasn’t really cut out to be a big star. That is not his end game. He still takes his craft very seriously, aware that fame is fleeting.
“People feel entitled to be famous and rich,” he told the Times, “and I’m like, dude, you could be digging ditches, bro.”
Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
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