Zach Bryan to Launch Jack Kerouac Center, Blending Country Music and American Literature

Just hours after signing his record-breaking $350 million deal with Warner Records, Zach Bryan revealed his next big move.

Announced on May 8 by the Jack Kerouac Estate, Bryan has purchased the former Saint Jean Baptiste Church in Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts—a move he’s called the “greatest honor” of his life.

With funding from the Oklahoma native, the historic building will be transformed into the Jack Kerouac Center, a cultural hub for exhibits, live music, public readings, and community events.

At first glance, it’s unexpected—but for Bryan, it’s perfectly on brand. He’s long worn his love of American literature on his sleeve. Scroll through his social media, and you’ll rarely find a post without a nod to Steinbeck, Faulkner, or his personal hero, Kerouac.

According to the Estate, Bryan’s commitment provided the momentum needed to turn “years of planning into a tangible reality”—years of organizing, reading, inspiring, and creating, on both sides of the collaboration.

If anything, this deal moves us closer to recognizing that country music isn’t just storytelling—it’s a form of American literature. And if Zach Bryan’s discography reads like a collection of modern poetry, there’s one song that captures that spirit more than any other: ‘Burn, Burn, Burn’.

Jack Kerouac, the pioneer of the Beat Gen. The author of the sprawling, spontaneous and societally rejective American classic, On The Road. The poet and novelist has inevitably influenced many songwriters and artists, especially those with a bit of angst and some wandering hearts, one of the more recent being Oklahoma's own. Bryan is obviously a well-read guy with a passion for literature, and you just can't write like he does without spending time with the outpourings of the American greats.

‘Burn, Burn, Burn’ is perhaps his most direct tribute to the legacy of one of America's most celebrated writers. It shares the same rhythmic lyricism and jazz-like improvisation that let Kerouac bring his life and characters vividly to the page. For both poets, it's the kind of writing style that offers an over-thinker and deep-feeler the opportunity to empty their heart and mind in a moment of free-flowing, beautiful prose, with varying degrees of burning.

Kerouac's characters are desperate to live life to the fullest, brightest, most intense burn possible. Their flames set alight anything in their path; if it leads to another spark to catch onto, they'll chase after it through the day and the night, across the country and into foreign lands, exploding unapologetically along the way.

There's a similar intensity to Bryan's lyrics too, but unlike the fleeting highs that fuel Kerouac's stories, there's a desire to fully embrace the raw, often unglamorous reality of life.

The four-minute standalone track goes against the classic country writing structure - or any kind of foundation for that matter - instead wildly leaning into a Kerouac-like stream of consciousness. It possesses seven rambling verses that are written with an urgency that leaves Bryan close to tripping over his own thoughts.

That same urgency underpins both their worldviews. While Kerouac pushed back against the post-WWII culture of consumerism and conformity, Bryan rejects the superficiality of today’s digital noise—the “TikTok talking, late night TV” emptiness that feels just as hollow. Different eras, maybe—but not so different after all.

Both crave a restlessness that fuels self-discovery—in defiance of a society eager to dictate who you should be and what you should do. 'Burn, Burn, Burn' kicks off with a longing to go back in time, to before our current world in which everyone (apparently) knows everything - people favour ego first, compassion second - before diving into a nostalgic desire for simplicity. It's at this point that Bryan's idea of what it means to burn through life truly reveals itself.

So what links Zach and Kerouac most may be that shared, unrelenting desire—to live fully, restlessly, and on their own terms. No matter what that might be for, more than anything they are chasing after authenticity and the chance to feel everything as fiercely as you can.

While both artists burn with intensity, it’s where that fire lives that sets them apart. Kerouac finds home in the wildest nights, the loudest friends and the busiest places. Bryan's intensity relates to the acceptance of passing time, the appreciation for those most important to you, and the need to live without regrets. Or when you do regret something, wholeheartedly feel that regret.

Feel everything—the good and the bad—but keep moving forward. We can't "go down the line" without embracing it all: the simplicity, the longing for it, the “joy, pain and sky.” That’s what keeps the burn alive. And while Bryan certainly has his Kerouac moments—the verse where he “heads to Paris on a late-night flight, finds a bar and gets in a fight, writes a few poems on a sunny balcony” is as Beat Gen as they come—it doesn’t take long for him to long for home again, back to “breathing in the fresh outside air,” before he knew “this life was unkind.” Who’s to say which experience holds more value—the chaos of a bar fight in Paris or the quiet of a “well-trained dog on a couple of acres”? Both are part of the journey down the line.

It’s that balance—the thrill and the still—that defines Bryan’s kindred spirit with Kerouac. Kerouac made it clear that his soulmates were the ones “mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,” people burning so brightly they, at time, came undone. Bryan’s kindred souls come from the same fire—just a little steadier, a little softer. To truly burn through life, he still seeks those “mad to live,” even if living means winding down a dusty back road. Those “mad to talk,” even if the words come through “lines of layman guitar.” And those “mad to be saved,” even if salvation is found in “simple songs and some human touch.”

Authenticity is the word I always come back to when it comes to Bryan's songwriting, and it's no coincidence that it's the one that I connect most to American literature too. Bryan possesses the same authenticity that Kerouac does in his rambling descriptions of breathless enthusiasm for life. His songwriting shares Steinbeck's remarkable ability to find the authentic beauty in the everyday. It has the same straight-to-the-point simplicity of a Hemingway short story, while embracing Faulkner's depth of character too.

One of the first lyrics I heard from Bryan that really stuck with me was from American Heartbreak's stunning opener, 'Late July': "I hope your sunsets always bleed red, hope your family's always well fed, and that song stuck in your head plays all night".

I suppose this is all I ever hope for people, that they have a moment of burning beauty at the end of every day, they have a good meal to share with people they love, and that there's a little soundtrack keeping them company throughout the day. These are all pure, authentic, intentional moments of living. Slow down, "pack the car while the creek's runnin, cast a line with the dawn comin" (a beautiful couple of lines from 'Funny Man') and live with a burning desire for the everyday. After all, something can't burn without giving it the time it needs to catch. The deeper we care about the things that matter, the warmer that fire gets, and more golden too. It's a slow burn that he longs for, but a slow burn can be just as bright.

So, as this modern-day poet turns to honoring the voices that ignite his own, there's hope that his next steps might spark a fire in a new generation of creatives.

If anything, Zach Bryan is unpredictable; not many people outside of his own circle would've seen this purchase coming. His next creative venture is set to see him take a motorcycle journey across the United States, a voyage that's bound to lead to an album full of intricate yet simple human observations. Following on from The Great American Bar Scene, Bryan is just extending his canvas from a dimly lit bar-room to a dust-covered dirt-road. Whether he finds alternative meanings in the small moments is something we'll find out, but in the same way Kerouac did, those moments will be celebrated to the point of near-madness.

It's the mentality the two writers live and die by. The lifestyle that fuels creativity. Keep bounding forwards without a destination in mind, but don't miss what's on offer along the way. There's no doubt that as Bryan sets off, there'll be the words of the Beat Gen genius on his mind: "Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road"- a mantra of some kind, one for those that find promise in the miles ahead of them.

A road trip like this has always been Bryan’s dream—and now, it sounds like he’s hitting the road in true Beat fashion. Or as he puts it: “Long live Kerouac’ing.”

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