When it comes to country music news, there is nobody that is more of a seminal figure than Zach Lane Bryan. Hailing from Oologah, Oklahoma, Bryan has brought a new and incredible standard to the songwriting of country music as a whole and an honesty that is too raw to hide from. With lyrics that can take you down and out and bring you right back up, the former Navy sailor has climbed the charts with his most recent album “American Heartbreak” and his hit single “Something In The Orange”.
Bryan began his career in the Navy in 2017. He began to upload songs across multiple platforms, however mainly to YouTube. His first single, Heading South” was released officially in 2019. The song had blown up through YouTube, with a video of Bryan, noticeably intoxicated, hammering the guitar and belting the lyrics out. This was his first moment of fame, and a moment that many would point back to as the start. The video has garnered over 17 million views since then. Bryan followed that up with his first album, “DeAnn”, which had success Bryan never dreamed of.
With a great voice and great rhythm guitar skills, Bryan still lands among many in terms of his musical skill. There have been many great voices in music, and that includes those who didn’t make it. Bryan is able to separate himself from the pack with his relatable lyrics, often noted in several different opinion pieces and by fans all over the internet. With lines like “Only God and my mama know what I need”, “People ruin people, I don’t wanna ruin you” and “Then I’ll get on the road again, at another chance at fitting in, but fitting in to kids like me is dying”. It’s this brutal honesty that many find within all his lyrics that makes him so accessible to a mainstream audience and a mainstream crowd. However much that these lyrics may help others, as shown in the line “The boys they always tell me that my words get em by”, it comes from a dark place for Bryan, who has been through a lot to get to the breakout point he is at.
Bryan’s somewhat dark lyrics come from a place of loss, due to losing his mother to cancer in 2016. This is who his debut album “DeAnn” is titled for and based on. The emotions of a loss this profound are evident in the lyrics, and the truth that Bryan tells about his emotions following the loss are as real as an album can get. This was followed with his marriage not working out and leading to divorce. Stemming from this divorce was the album “Elisabeth” which was the maiden name of his wife. It is these two incidents that led to his first two albums, with both being profound statements on how hard times can be ruminated upon through music.
Zach Bryan sits in a place many country “stars” seem to find themselves in these days; not being on the radio. While artists like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs dominate the airwaves and are able to get their music out through major companies and deals, there is a type of artist loved by country fans all around that does not fall in this category. Zach Bryan is one of them. Never one to fit into the Nashville sound, or even country music sound as a whole, his music is rarely heard on the radio. This is for good reason. Bryan’s ballads and singular songwriting don’t appeal to the big suits in Nashville or the radio figures. While he is signed with Warner Brothers, a massive label, his music is still found on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music way more than you would ever find it on the radio or in the mainstream. It is with this conviction that he moves forward in his music, continuing to release music that his many fans love.