Is Bryan Adams a Guest Vocalist on Zach Bryan's New Song, ‘Bass Boat’?

As well as delving into the various vignettes and moments that have coloured his new album, The Great American Bar Scene, in his newly unveiled preface, Zach Bryan has also hinted at a surprise collaboration with Canadian hitmaker, Bryan Adams.

Bryan Adams, the artist behind the colossal smash hit, ’Summer of ‘69’, is credited in the liner notes, which can be found below the preface Zach Bryan has shared via Instagram. Adams is referenced as a writer on both ‘The Way Back’ and ‘Bass Boat’.

It's not yet clear whether Bryan Adams will feature solely as a writer, or whether he has also contributed vocals to the new project. It seems as though ‘The Way Back’ interpolates Adam's much-loved song, ‘Heaven’, with the liner notes reading, “‘The Way Back’ contains elements from the written work ‘Heaven’ by Bryan Adams’.

It therefor elooks like Adams is only credited on ‘The Way Back’ with his songwriting partner, Jim Vallance, because the new song incorporates certain parts of ‘Heaven’.

Bryan Adams’ name appears again, however, as a credited songwriter on ‘Bass Boat’, another track penned with Vallance and Zach. This makes us think Adams may be a guest vocalist on the song, potentially joining Bruce Springsteen, John Mayer, John Moreland and Noeline Hofmann on the list of featured artists.

On the other hand, there is a section of the liner notes devoted to featured artists, in which it's written, “Bruce Springsteen appears courtesy of Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment”. If Bryan Adams is indeed a guest vocalist on The Great American Bar Scene, we would've expected to see his name here.

However, Bryan Adams’ label situation is a little murky at present, with the Canadian having previously been signed to BMG Records. Yet his most recent singles only reference ‘Badams Music Limited’ as the label, which suggests he may now be independent - and if he's independent, he would not need any official credit in the liner notes such as “Bryan Adams appears courtesy of Badams Music Limited”.

We'll have to wait and see, but if Bryan Adams is indeed featured on The Great American Bar Scene, we're sure he'll make an incredible addition to an already-stacked roster of features.

In addition to shared the liner notes, Zach Bryan has unveiled an evocative preface touching on how The Great American Bar Scene came about and how much the project means to him, “The making of this album tested me and everyone close to me. It drove me to my ends and my beginnings. I saw the lights of Paris after saying I would for ten years, rode the coast of Australia with a beautiful woman, was locked in a pub until 7am in Ireland, walked my favorite street in New York over a hundred times, thought I was going to bleed out in a field in Tennessee, spent a few hours in handcuffs, hugged my grandma more than a few times, layed in the grass of my mother's hometown, sang ‘State Trooper’ in a bar South of Boston and wrote something that I think was important. I wrote and produced all of these with the help of some truly great friends. I finally felt like I's making music again. If you don't like it I assume it's not intended for you. Grab your beers through tears and fears, ‘the Great American Bar Scene’”.

The Great American Bar Scene arrives on Thursday, July 4th, and will mark the ‘Dawns’ singer-songwriter's first studio album since his widely lauded 2023 record, Zach Bryan.

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