With Zach Bryan mania seemingly hitting a fever pitch over the past two years, it seems as if everything the 28-year-old singer/songwriter does gets put under the microscope. Whether it’s his comments about the Bud Light boycott, his controversial tweets about Taylor Swift and Kanye West or his infamous 2023 arrest, Bryan has always been someone who isn’t afraid to speak his mind (minus a deleted tweet or two).
In his recent “Musicians on Musicians” interview with Bruce Springsteen in Rolling Stone, the “I Remember Everything” singer dug into everything from the pair’s prolific songwriting, to the future of American politics to some details on his upcoming album. However, the most interesting part of the interview was undoubtedly his comments on being a country musician.
After discussing Springsteen’s writing style, which borrows elements from the genre, Bryan noted that, while he loves country music, he loves a variety of genres, pointing to Jason Isbell and Kings of Leon specifically.
Bryan then went on to claim that he doesn’t want to be a country musician, noting that he’d rather be considered a songwriter, “I don’t want to be a country musician. Everyone calls me it. I want to be a songwriter, and you’re quintessentially a songwriter. No one calls Bruce Springsteen – [I] hate to use your name in front of you — but no one calls Bruce Springsteen a freaking rock musician, which you are one, but you’re also an indie musician, you’re also a country musician. You’re all these things encapsulated in one man. And that’s what songwriting is.”
Springsteen then said that he can see where Bryan is coming from due to his prolific live shows, “No, it’s interesting. ‘Cause I know that you’ve been connected to the country genre, which I can hear, but if you go and see the show, there’s so much — and I don’t want to call it rock — just energy in your performance. You bust down all those different genre boundaries.”
The “Something in the Orange” singer finished by saying, “That’s why you’re a hero to me, because no one’s ever come up to you and said you were in any sort of lane. When I first started making music, I told Stefan and Danny, my managers, I was like, ‘I want to be in a lane where, when people look back, they can listen to my music and it’s supremely whatever you were doing.’ You were the only person in my head that has ever done that.”
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Bryan feels this way given that he has gone on record before claiming that he’s not a country musician. With that being said, however, it’s sure to raise eyebrows due to the fact that Bryan has risen to fame within country music. Regardless, it’s a fascinating perspective on his artistry and his potential future in the genre.