Riley Green has already released several collaborations, including two with Ella Langley. But there is one artist he still wants to collaborate with, someone Green has already been a fan of for a long, long time.
“There are so many great artists out there, so many people I’m a fan of,” Green says. “I’ve always been a big fan of Cody Johnson. I think that’d be a cool one. I’ll never forget we did a show together at maybe Terminal West in Atlanta. This has been I don’t know how many years ago. I think he opened for me, and his fans and my fans were so obvious, ’cause his had cowboy hats on and all mine had Atlanta Braves hats on,”
Their fans might be slightly different, but Green has no doubt that their music would work well together for their own fans.
“I think it’s cool when you can find somebody that still stylistically fits but is still very different in some way,” Green says. “I think that’d be a cool way to merge two kind of different fan bases.”
Green has a Top 40 hit with “Worst Way,” from his latest Don’t Mind If I Do album. He recently celebrated a No. 1 hit with “You Look Like You Love Me” with Langley.
“It was really organic,” Green tells Country Countdown USA. “I knew Ella. We were going on tour together, thought it would be cool to have a song together. I wrote a verse, and sent it to her, and they liked the idea, and it worked out very well.”
The song is just one of several hits Green has had at radio, ever since his debut “There Was This Girl” single came out in 2018. He’s also released songs with Thomas Rhett and Luke Combs, although having so much success was never part of Green’s original plan.
“I didn’t have any visions of commercial success,” Green tells Cowboys & Indians. “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, and that’s when I started writing my own songs,” he adds.
Green knows how to work hard. The Alabama native grew up listening to traditional country music, never dreaming he would one day be part of the genre.
“My granddaddy would say that George Jones, Roy Acuff, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams were country music,” Green says. “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. Music was just a hobby for me and my granddaddy.”
Green and Langley are touring together again in 2025, on Green’s Damn Country Music Tour. Find all of his music and upcoming shows at RileyGreenMusic.com.