Riley Green is always up for a collaboration. The country singer has experienced great success when he’s teamed up with other artists. As such, it’s not something he plans to stop anytime soon.
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Ahead of a party celebrating Green’s two No. 1s on the charts—”Worst Way” and “Don’t Mind If I Do”—he told reporters that “all the collaborations I’ve done have worked out pretty well.”
That’s perhaps the understatement of the century. Green teamed up with Thomas Rhett for “Half of Me,” with Luke Combs for “Different ‘Round Here,” and Ella Langley for “You Look Like You Love Me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do,” all of which were met with great acclaim.
As for future collabs, Green quipped, “I’m pretty open to a lot of artists. If somebody is listening and wants to do a song, call me.”
Green has his eye on one person in particular, though.
“I think maybe a fun, lighthearted song with somebody like Dierks [Bentley]. That’d be fun,” he said. “Dierks and Jon Pardi are a couple of guys that we’ve always talked about it. We just never really got around to it. It’s nice to do something with your friends too.”
Fans, of course, are itching for more music from the singer, whether a collaboration or a solo track. However, Green largely stayed mum about when something new will debut.
“If I could do whatever I want to do, I’d probably be in a studio, and have several songs recorded, and be looking at putting some of those songs out really, really soon. And then an album sometime this year,” he teased. “That’s what I would do if I can make the schedule, but I don’t know if we’re doing that or not.”
Riley Green on His No. 1 Success
While Green is known to collaborate on vocals, the two songs of the party’s focus were both solo writes.
“It’s a cool thing for me,” he said. “I never went into writing by myself because I was wanting to be a solo writer. I wrote all my songs on my own early in my career because I did construction and I didn’t know anybody else who wrote songs.”
“When I’m really fired up about an idea and I’m emotionally attached to it, it just comes easily. It’s always nice when songs that you’ve written by yourself work. It’s pretty validating,” he added. “You never become so confident that you think, ‘Everything I write is great’. I certainly don’t felt that way, but it’s nice when you get this kind of validation. It motivates you to want to go write more songs.”
It certainly worked out well in the case of “Worst Way.” Green, however, admitted that it was initially “the most unsure of a song that I’ve ever been.”
“I don’t really live in the sappy, love song world very often, especially not the that forward of a love song,” he said. “… That’s the tough thing about writing by yourself. It’s not really that you can’t do it, it’s just how do you know if it’s right or not.”
When Green played it for some pals, though, they encouraged him to move forward with it.
“I posted a video of me playing it on Instagram and it [got] several thousand views pretty quick. It became obvious that it was gonna be a hit,” Green said. “I really just was trying to think outside of my comfort zone stylistically.”
Later, speaking onstage to the crowd at the party, Green spoke about his love for “Don’t Mind If I Do.”
“It was such a cool thing to have two giant songs with another artist out on the road and to get to play them together every week,” Green said of Langley. “It was really cool to get to watch the excitement of fans when we would get on stage and sit down on stools and play ‘Don’t Mind If I Do.’ That was such a fun moment, something that became one of my favorite parts of the tour.”
As he wrapped up his speech, Green told the crowd that hitting No. 1 two times with solo-written tracks is a proud moment for him.
“There’s a lot of things that have happened in my career over the last few years that I’m really proud of, but songs will always have been the root of what really means a lot to me,” he said. “Something like this is really motivating. I think that, as a songwriter, it’s nice to have some type of recognition and to at least get a pat on shoulders, say, ‘What you’re doing is working and we enjoy it.’”
Photo by Tibrina Hobson/CBS via Getty Images
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