“The Music Has Matured a Little Bit”: Zach Top Discusses His New Album and Latest Single, ‘Good Times & Tan Lines’

Zach Top has stopped by the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast to delve into his new album, Ain't In It For My Health, and the lead single, ‘Good Times & Tan Lines’. The latter dropped on June 9th, immediately after Top's stellar CMA Fest 2025 set.

When chatting to Taylor Lewan and Will Compton, Zach Top explained where ‘Good Times & Tan Lines’ originated from, “It's pretty down the middle, no curveballs here. I believe the idea was Carson [Chamberlain's], actually. He just saw it somewhere on a t-shirt...Half the songs we write is some dumb thing...But yeah, so he saw something on a t-shirt, whatever it was, and was like, ‘Man, that sounds like a song, ‘Good Times & Tan Lines’’. So we wrote it with another buddy of mine, Wyatt McCubbin, another great writer. Yeah, just felt like it's all there”.

He expanded, “Some of those titles - like, ‘Cold Beer & Country Music’ is another one - it's kind of like, how did somebody not write this already? And it seems like it's almost low-hanging fruit...How's that not been done?...There's no secrets here, just a fun, supposed to be a good-time summer anthem song. It's not gonna change the world, maybe it'll change somebody's tax bracket...! We've been cranking it up already when we've been out on the boat. It's a good boat song, for sure”.

‘Good Times & Tan Lines’ is permeated by a sense of rose-tinted nostalgia, with Zach Top channelling Alan Jackson's ‘Chattahoochee’ as he paints a picture of youthful joy and innocence. However, Top admitted to the Bussin’ with the Boys duo that the playful, alcohol-infused activities he sings about were not a part of his actual childhood, “Honestly, I was telling this to the guys while we wrote it...So we never said anything about this, but I was home-schooled from all the way up to my sophomore year in high school, I guess, and then went to community college. Anyway, home-schooled Christian family, so like, I wasn't a very wild kid in high school or anything...I was going to bluegrass festivals. I was kind of a nerd - and it's worked out okay, so I'm not complaining! But I feel like hearing other people's stories of high school, where they're like sneaking out and, you know, drinking with their friends all night...I wasn't allowed to date anybody. I couldn't do anything. It was a very, kind of like, sheltered childhood”.

Even so, the neo-traditional trailblazer stressed that he wouldn't change a thing, “I had a great time, nothing but fond memories. But, I was telling the guys, I was like, ‘This is like, I'm kind of writing this as what I imagine my high school experience should've been...Chasing girls and skinny-dipping and whatever’. But anyway, I was being a nerd and trying to learn to the play the guitar like Tony Rice”.

As for the new album as a whole, Ain't In It For My Health, which drops on August 29th and is billed as a sun-soaked, feel-good project, the ‘I Never Lie’ hitmaker joked, “I promised the people a summer album, and I barely made it. But we've got it!”

The Washington singer-songwriter went on to touch on the inspiration behind the title, “It's a line out of one of the songs, out of the first songs on the album...It's kind of like a little ‘I'm here to stay’ statement. Ain't a one-hit-wonder kind of thing”.

Top then revealed that Ain't In It For My Health will feature 15 songs in total, and we're keeping our fingers crossed the previously teased ‘Flip Flop’ has made the cut.

The fast-emerging artist teased that, although there will be some breezy, beachside tunes, Ain't In It For My Health will also explore some more serious themes, “I love all the songs - I wouldn't have put them on the record if I didn't...I'm a little older now than the stuff on the first record, and there's a couple more ‘life’ sort of songs...There's one called ‘Between the Ditches’ that...I hope is going to be pretty powerful, I think it is. Hopefully people resonate with it. There's a bunch of stuff on there I'm really excited about...It's the same old me, sounds like the same artist, but I think the music has matured a little bit and it's moving forward. Yeah, it doesn't sound like just, you know, same old bland”.

Excitingly, it looks like we can also look forward to more collaborations in the future with Billy Strings. Zach Top joined forces with the bluegrass phenom for a three-song EP back in November 2024, which was initially released as an Apple Music exclusive. Top shares Strings’ bluegrass background, and gushed that the ‘Dust in a Baggie’ crooner always instils in him a desire to further hone his craft.

Zach Top heartwarmingly toasted, “He makes me want to be better...I love every time I get to be around him. Nicest dude. But yeah, we will do more things in the future together, for sure. I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like...We'll do something”.

We're hoping the full tracklist for Ain't In It For My Health will be revealed in the coming weeks, and if ‘Good Times & Tan Lines’ is anything to go by, it looks like Top will be following up his break-out debut, Cold Beer & Country Music, with more classic country gold.

Listen to Zach Top's full interview with Bussin’ with the Boys below:

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