Riley Green on Joining ‘The Voice,’ His New Album, and 15 Years of Lessons Learned (Exclusive)

Riley Green is gearing up for a huge moment in his career. This month, the country singer will began his role as a coach on The Voice just days after the release of his latest LP, That’s Just Me.

“I signed a record deal in 2018, so I’m fairly new to some people, and people are just finding me now, but I’ve been doing it for 15 years,” Green told host Lisa Konicki on the latest episode of American Songwriter’s Off the Record podcast. “So there are a lot of things I’ve learned, especially what not to do.”

Green is excited to share his hard earned wisdom with contestants as he takes on the new role, which he called a “career stepping stone.”

“I think it’ll be interesting to see what kind of music I’m drawn to, what types of voices, and also in what ways I can help coach somebody along in that world,” he said, before sharing what he’s looking for during the Blind Audition phase of the show, which will begin airing on Sept. 21.

“For me, it’s just, I think, a voice that is believable with lyrics. I think that a lot of people can sing really well. Certainly being able to have a career without being the greatest singer in the world is how I got here,” Green said. “If somebody can make me believe what they’re singing about, that always draws me in.”

Riley Green Discusses His Musical Philosophy

It’s no surprise that Green finds himself drawn to honesty in lyrics. That’s exactly what he implements in his own music.

“If it’s not about something that actually happened to me, it’s about something that’s happened in my life that made me think whatever that thought was,” Green said of his songs. “… Fans of country music always want to believe a lyric’s true. I try to make it as real as I can.”

Take the title track of his forthcoming album, which Green said is “one of my favorite songs on the record.”

“I love songs that are sayings… I get a lot of them from Green Stores, a little store out in the community I grew up in. E.L. Green still runs the store. He’s 94 years old and doesn’t charge tax. Just guesses what everything costs. If you put a Snickers and a Coca, he’ll say it’s $2. The next day it’d be $2.50,” Green said. “My granddaddies used to go out there, and their brothers would play dominoes, and everybody hung out. I heard so many one-liners out there.”

“I just thought, ‘Man, what better way to paint the whole picture of an album than saying, ‘That’s just me,’” he added. “… I want to always make sure I have songs that are what got me here on the album, and write songs from the place where I get a lot of my inspiration, which is my farm in Alabama.”

His experiences growing up also inspired “POS.”

“It wasn’t flashy things we had growing up. You had to find a way to be proud of what you had,” Green explained. “Eating at Waffle House, and wearing overalls and driving a rusty truck because it’s that old and beat up, and it’s still running is something people would be proud of.”

That’s not what fans thought of the first time Green teased the song, though. He decided to do so shortly after his rumored ex, Megan Moroney, released “Who Hurt You?” a track that’s widely believed to be about him. Given that, listeners believed Green’s song was a direct response to Moroney’s track.

“I wrote the song a year ago. It got talked about quite a bit. So apparently I teased it on the right day,” he quipped. “I had a few days off. I sit down in my little writing room… and play a little bit of that song. It got a million views and comments. I said, ‘Man, is that song that good?’ And then I realized it was the timing of it maybe, that caused it.”

Riley Green Previews That’s Just Me

Green didn’t just include one type of song on That’s Just Me, though. Instead, it’s a mix of inspirations, both sonically and lyrically.

“In some worlds, I think people try to make an album a theme and stick with that theme throughout it. I always loved a lot of different types of music,” Green said. “I grew up in the era of burnt CDs where I might have a Tupac song and a Tim McGraw song right after that.”

“That’s something I’m always going to kind of make my goal: to have a lot of different types of songs stylistically on a record,” he added. “And I think this one’s got a lot of that.”

There’s the playful “Think As You Drunk,” for instance, a “comedic country” tune.

“I had the title for a while. I’ve heard everybody make that joke—’I’m not as think as you drunk I am.’ I wrote it,” Green said. “As soon as it got done, we listened back to it. I said, ‘Man, that sounds like something Toby Keith would’ve written.’ I didn’t go into it trying to write something that was a Toby Keith song. It just happened that way.”

When he realized the Keith-ness of the tune, Green decided to use the opportunity to honor the late singer.

“I was firmly against any type of AI version of his vocals doing my lyric. Dan Huff sent me an edit of just his voice from ‘I Ain’t As Good As I Once Was’ at the end. I thought, ‘Man, that’s just a perfect little surprise, tip of the cap, and a great little moment in the song,’” Green said. “We sent it to [Keith’s family], and they all loved it.”

Riley Green on Staying True to Himself While Stepping Out of His Comfort Zone

That was a huge compliment for Green, who grew up loving Keith. Later, Green became inspired by Keith’s dedication to writing his own music.

“I don’t guess I really knew how many of his songs that he wrote. I certainly didn’t know how many he wrote by himself,” Green said. “Once I got into this world and started to realize how rare that is, it really made me want to do it more… When I got here and realized that was a rare thing, it made me want to hold onto it, so I’m mindful about it now.”

That doesn’t mean Green is opposed to outside cuts, though.

“When somebody sends me something, I’m always looking for something that I think sounds like me, but also something that I couldn’t have come up with,” he said. “That’s what you want. You want a better version of something you would do.”

He found just that in “Ten Pairs of Boots,” which will appear on That’s Just Me.

“Talking about having a son at the end, I’ve never lived that. What a cool thing that I wouldn’t have come up with,” he said. “The melody of the song sounded a little bit outside of something I would do.”

That made it a perfect fit for the album. On the LP, Green said he tried “to do some things musically that are a little different.”

“I’m not running from what got me here,” he said, “but am certainly trying to push my comfort zone a little bit to try new things musically.”

Fans will get to hear the results of that when That’s Just Me comes out on Sept. 18.