Harper Smith
With his ever-polite Alabama manners, country star Riley Green isn’t one to brag.
Lucky for him, we don’t mind doing it for him.
Already boasting a multi-Platinum catalog built on no-B.S. tunes and an honest connection to the life they’re about, Green’s hot streak keeps getting hotter. After dropping his third Nashville album Don’t Mind If I Do last month, he’s up for his first-ever CMA Award at this year’s November 20 show, where he’ll vie for Musical Event of the Year for his duet “You Look Like You Love Me” with Ella Langley.
But as if that wasn’t enough, the rising star is also celebrating open season with his bar, Riley Green’s Duck Blind, which recently took over the prime midtown location that housed Winners for years. Open now as the new neighbor and compliment to the much-loved Losers Bar & Grill (the bars share ownership ties), it’s a full circle moment. Green says he made his early Music City connections in Winners, going back to his first Whiskey Jam as an indie up-and- comer intent on doing things his way.
“It’s been great. I can’t say that I really needed another project like a bar, but it’s an awesome thing to partner with somebody I’m good friends with,” Green says, speaking of longtime Losers co-owner Steve Ford, who also owned Winners. “And probably more meaningful that it’s a bar I spent a lot of time at. A lot of the relationships I’ve made in town have been right there in that building, so it’s cool to have my name on it.”
Rebuilt from the ground up, visitors of Riley Green’s Duck Blind will find Nashville’s famous upscale honky-tonk experience, but with a concept customized to Green’s personal taste. Famous for still living in his hometown of Jacksonville, Alabama, he’s an avid and vocal outdoorsman, so you can think of the Duck Blind as a burger joint and sports bar with a strong hunting and fishing theme – and also a stage where aspiring artists can hone their craft.
That last part was especially important to Green, who says he honestly never expected to be involved in a bar, but figured if it was going to happen, he’d better do it right.
“It’s a place that up-and-coming guys and girls can go and tell their story and sing songs that they wrote, and tell the stories behind them. That’s something I’ve always enjoyed about Nashville,” he explains. “I wanted it to be something that was a good extension of me, and I’ve definitely been a big outdoorsman my whole life. I love duck hunting, and it has sort of become part of my brand, so I thought that was a great tie-in. And it was something I haven’t seen up here.”
Meanwhile, Green’s still hard at work telling his own story, and Don’t Mind If I Do fills in a few more blanks. Featuring 18 songs true to the life his bar captures in spirit, familiar themes like riverbank romance and burned bridges make the set another example of Green’s genuine love of all things country. Five tracks were even written solo, bringing fans even closer to his headspace. And on top of chest-thumping anthems of backwoods philosophy, drinking tunes with a flavor all their own, and soulful tributes to those tied to their land, Green once again opens a window to his heart.
Produced by hit maker Dann Huff and built on an earthy modern twang, the set follows a few years of success which have seen Green cement his brand of rough-hewn-but-tender country with hits like the 3x Platinum “I Wish Grandpas Never Died.” More recently, he earned his first CMA Awards nod with Ella Langley on the two-stepping “You Look Like You Love Me,” and as one of the more “country-sounding” songs on this year’s ballot, Green says it’s motivating to know that style can still turn heads. It’s “right where I want to be,” he says, and he wasn’t looking to change for Don’t Mind If I Do.
“I think the opposite,” he says. “I’m wanting to try not changing up my sound or writing from anywhere different. I think I should lean into what got me here, and it’s telling stories about how I grew up and some of the values we have there. As I get a little older, I guess some of my experiences have changed, but I certainly want to try to write from the same place.”
As a case in point, the title track is another duet with Langley. After the pair toured together and developed some creative chemistry, the post-breakup longing behind “Don’t Mind If I Do” makes it a melancholy standout of romantic second-guessing.
The album features another collaboration, too – this time with superstar Luke Bryan – and this one needed a lighter touch. Fellow outdoorsmen, Green says the pair have become pals and sometimes spend days off fishing in Bryan’s bass pond just outside Nashville. So naturally, they channeled a day of snagged lines and ones-that-got-away into the slow-rolling fun of “Reel Problems.”
“It just needed to be a real fun, light song,” Green says. “Obviously, talking about ‘reel problems’ being these small things you have on the lake has kind of put it in perspective what really matters, and when I wrote the song, I knew it would be something Luke would dig." “I think we’ll have a good time filming a music video for that one day,” he goes on. “Maybe in a boat somewhere.”
There’s more to life than romance and broken rods, though, and Green includes another gut-wrenching gem on Don’t Mind If I Do. First released in early 2024 on his Way Out Here EP, the solo-written “Jesus Saves” stands as a vivid portrait of homelessness – and more importantly, the humanity behind it. Framed around a simple cardboard sign (and the much deeper story it doesn’t tell), the moving ballad might be hypothetical, but the empathy it creates is all too real.
“You don’t really know what somebody’s been through,” Green says. “I hope people heard it in a way that would make ‘em a little more compassionate when you see somebody that could use a hand. Some of those things – if we went through ‘em we might be in their same shoes. So, it’s a pretty special song to me, and I thought it was a good message.”
With Thanksgiving on the way, it’s also another reminder of how far Green has come. He might not be one to brag, but as for paying it forward? Well, that’s more like, “don’t mind if I do.”
“I’m very blessed in a lot of ways with my music career, and now having a bar and things I never really dreamed of,” he says. “If the bar can be a place for somebody to come and get their start kind of like I did, that’d be a great thing, and is certainly motivating for me.”