Exclusive: Riley Green and Ella Langley Discuss New Collaboration, ‘Don't Mind If I Do’

Although they say lightning never strikes in the same place twice, Riley Green and Ella Langley have bottled up the electricity of their infectious first duet, the viral ‘You Look Like You Love Me’, for a surprise second collaboration, ’Don't Mind If I Do’.

The introspective song serves as the title-track for Riley Green's highly anticipated new album, which arrives on October 18th, to coincide with the ‘Jesus Saves’ crooner's birthday.

‘Don't Mind If I Do’ is a departure from the playful, flirty ambience of ‘You Look Like You Love Me’, which was recently given a blockbuster, Wild West-inspired set of visuals. By contrast, Riley Green and Ella Langley's new collaboration finds the duo looking wistfully back at a previous romance, and yearning to rekindle the flame.

While in the UK earlier in the summer for their 2024 BST Hyde Park performances in support of Morgan Wallen in London, Riley Green and Ella Langley sat down with Holler to delve into their ‘You Look Like You Love Me’ follow-up, ‘Don't Mind If I Do’.

First teased by Riley in mid-June via an acoustic video shared across socials, the intricate offering was immediately lapped up by fans, and was originally thought to be a solo track.

Riley Green explained that the duet arose while he was on the road with Ella Langley in the US, “Obviously, Ella being on tour with us, that's very organically how a lot of things happen. I was out with Luke Combs, and we ended up getting him on ‘Different ‘Round Here’. So I wrote [‘Don't Mind If I Do’], and I had it written as a duet. I just asked Ella to come by the studio and sing it, to get a female's vocal on it”.

Interestingly, Riley wasn't initially planning on keeping Ella on the song, and was instead using her part as a reference track. When she recorded her vocals, though, he was left with no choice, “I was still deciding who I was going to get to do it, but she did such a great job, we just didn't think anybody could sing it better than she did”.

Ella Langley underlined that, when recording a duet - such as ‘Strangers’ with Kameron Marlowe and ‘That's Why We Fight’ with Koe Wetzel - the bond between artists is key.

The Alabama singer-songwriter reflected on how easy it is to work with Riley Green, “I've done a few duets at this point and some feature stuff, and really, for me, it's the relationship, the connection. It's somebody I want to create with, you know? It's fun. That's the whole joy of living where we live, and getting to do what we get to do, we are surrounded by people who love to do the same thing”.

Ella Langley went on to underline, “So definitely, Riley being from Alabama, we grew up with a lot of the same musical influences. Our hometowns are two hours apart from each other. On ‘Don't Mind If I Do’, he wrote that one by himself, and he just asked for me to come in the green room and see how a female sounded on it, just for fun. Then I think they loved it the way we did it - so they kept it on there!”

It's safe to say we're glad they did, and given the passion and vulnerability that Riley Green and Ella Langley lace into ‘Don't Mind If I Do’, the song is already shaping up to be one of the stand-outs from Riley's forthcoming studio album of the same name.

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