Zach Bryan Reveals He Talks to Morgan Wallen and Apologises for Criticizing Nashville: “I've Always Had a Chip on My Shoulder”

While discussing his new EP with Matthew McConaughey, Zach Bryan has surprised fans by revealing that he's on speaking terms with Morgan Wallen, before admitting that he's changed his once-dismissive attitude towards Nashville's music scene.

Bryan has always been outspoken about his disregard for the mainstream country music industry, with the Oklahoma native famously using Auto-Tune to mock Music City's commercialised format on his American Heartbreak gem, ‘She Wants a Cowboy’.

But now, as McConaughey points out in his interview, Bryan has relocated to the outskirts of Nashville. The ‘Something in the Orange’ singer-songwriter explains how it's dawned on him that he was being too critical on the city and the industry as a whole, with Bryan confessing that he realised he had “a chip on my shoulder”.

Bryan muses, “I've always had a chip on my shoulder my entire life. I've always thought whether that was like anger or grief...I've always been f***ing so mad at something. I'm not really sure why. But when I started making music in New York and recording music in New York, I thought I was a part of this tribe. We're doing things different”.

He goes on, “And I really enjoyed that for a while. And I thought that I was onto something, because you hear some of these songs, and you're like, that was written by how many people? What does that even mean? Why is that popular? And then you listen to it, and it's got like a trap beat on it, or has something catchy to it, or has a nice guitar line, which 20 people in a studio came up with synthetically, and they're like, this will be great for the masses, and I always was disgusted by that because I've always been like a [Townes] Van Zandt fan or a [Blaze] Foley fan”.

Bryan shares that he's since had eye-opening conversations with artists from both sides of the country spectrum, like Jason Isbell and Morgan Wallen, “I used to get texts from people in Nashville that I was friends with that were like, ‘Man, you're a purist’, as in a songwriting purist, and I was like, ‘What the fuck does that even mean?’ Like, shouldn't all songwriters be purists? And like, and I don't mean to sound pretentious, I really mean that. Shouldn't we all be writing our our own feelings? But then I talk to Jason Isbell and I talk to [Morgan] Wallen sometimes, and I talk to all these people, and I realize the chip was mine on my shoulder”.

Bryan qualifies this, “Of course there's like really synthetic, terrible, fraudulent parts of Nashville. But there's also really cool and beautiful parts of the city too. And this is what changed my mind - I'll tell you what. I came to visit my buddy, and I was here for like three weeks. And I was running around. I was looking at all these people working on the side of the road, and I saw all these, I don't know, tradesmen, carpenters, plumbers, and I was like, ‘Wow, these people are still working out here’. I just really respected that, and I saw all the land, and I gave it a chance, and I gave the people a chance, and everyone was actually kind. It wasn't like a back-handed kindness. It wasn't a judgmental kindness. It was like a real kindness”.

Bryan shares that he and his wife Samantha had car trouble on a number of occasions, and locals were always happy to help, “I broke down with Samantha a few times on the side of the road, and this is a cliché, but people, they helped me. And I don't know, I feel safe here because the people around here are really just...resourceful and tough and really, really sweet. And then I was recording my EP recently”.

Bryan shares the moment he realised how he'd been too harsh on Nashville, “This really sold me. I was recording my EP recently, and I was recording this song called ‘Lies’ with Lana Del Rey. We're sitting in this studio on Music Row in Nashville, which I already felt like a fraud for doing...I felt like a liar because my whole life I'd been like, ‘Man, this city...No-one knows nothing’, you know, like a pompous asshole”.

He remembers how he was hanging out with Lana, and then got a message from Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill, “And then I was sitting there at Easy Eye in Nashville, and I was sitting there with Lana Del Rey, Caleb Followill from Kings of Leon texts me while I'm there with Lana, and he goes, ‘Hey, we're playing at the Basement East tonight. You want to come perform with us?’ And I looked at my phone, with one of my my idols sitting in front of me, one of my idols on my phone, and I was like, ‘Well, in no other city could this happen’. The next day, Evan Felker, who's also on the EP, shows up and records a song with me. And two days after that, Ben Howard was playing at the Ryman in Nashville. And these are all musicians I respect and love and applaud every day. I listen to these people, and I was like, ‘What gives me the right? What gives me the right to say what a place is?’”

He explains, “It proved to me that every place has its pros, every place has its cons. And growing up in my young manhood, through my 20’s, I kind of got rid of that chip on my shoulder for everything - not just Nashville, for everything. I got rid of it for everyone”.

Bryan concludes by opening up about how getting sober helped him to soften his outlook on the genre, “I think quitting drinking helped me a lot with it, but I also think just, like, taking a deep breath and realizing that the world isn't after you. And these people in Nashville, just like the people in New York, just like people in L.A., they're just trying to make music so people enjoy it, and they're trying to put food on the table. They're trying to make beautiful art, and I'm no different. I'm trying to do the same thing, and like, we're all a part of this experience together”.

It's undoubtedly refreshing to hear Bryan talking about his shifted perspective on Nashville, as well as revealing that he does on occasion chat to Wallen. Bryan and Wallen were once perceived as the flag-bearers for two opposing styles of country music, with many fans hailing Bryan as the country ‘purist’ while Wallen was often blamed for promoting a more commercialised, genre-blurring form of the genre.

Bryan also blasted Wallen after his racial slur incident back in 2021, with the ‘I Remember Everything’ hitmaker mocking the ‘Last Night’ chart-topper by tweeting, “Didn't know this is what @MorganWallen meant by country ass s*** with country ass friends”.

Since then, though, Bryan has shown love to Wallen, resharing the latter's song, ‘I'm the Problem’, via Instagram. This came as a surprise to his followers, given how Bryan's ex, Brianna LaPaglia, has claimed a matter of weeks earlier via BFF's Podcast that he got jealous when she was singing ‘Last Night’ around the house.

There's also the Wallen body-cam footage from his 2024 arrest in Nashville, where the police officer is listing country artists and he mentions Bryan, with Wallen responding, “I don't know Zach Bryan that well. I know who he is, but I don't listen to him”.

But now, refreshingly, it seems like the duo are becoming better acquainted with one another. Given the fact that Wallen and Bryan are currently streets ahead of their contemporaries in terms of the stadiums they're selling out and their streaming figures, it's inevitable that, off the back of Bryan making these new comments, fans are now wondering if there's any possibility of a blockbuster collaboration.

Even if they're getting closer as friends, it does feel like Wallen and Bryan's respective styles are still a little too far apart at the moment for a collaboration to make sense.

But you can't help that feel that, as Wallen continues to experiment more with alternative styles, epitomised by ‘I'm a Little Crazy’ and ‘Genesis’, there may be room for him to push the boundaries of his sound even further with an alt-country link-up with Bryan. We'd certainly be here for it, and it would feel like a fitting unification of two artists that once represented polar opposite sides of modern country music.

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