Riley Green always wanted to follow in Toby Keith’s footsteps. During an appearance on American Songwriter’s Off the Record podcast, the country singer told host Lisa Konicki about how the late legend inspired much of his career.
Green developed a love for traditional country stars like George Jones and Merle Haggard from his grandpa. However, it was his dad who introduced him to Keith.
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“Toby was one of my dad’s favorites,” Green said, before quipping, “My dad always said that ‘I ain’t as good as I once was,’ Toby took that from him. He said that all the time.”
Though Green always enjoyed Keith’s music, he didn’t appreciate the way his songs came to be until later in life.
“I don’t guess I really knew how many of his songs that he wrote, certainly didn’t know how many he wrote by himself,” Green said. “Once I got into this world and started to realize how rare that is, it really made me want to do it more.”
Initially, Green did many solo writes out of necessity.
“I didn’t write by myself because I wanted to write songs by myself. I didn’t know anybody else who wrote songs. I was doing construction work. All my buddies were carpenters,” he explained. “I wrote because I got tired of playing the same cover songs at every show.”
However, as his career developed, Green came to appreciate all that he could accomplish on his own.
“When I got here and realized that was a rare thing, it made me want to hold onto it,” he said of writing alone. “I’m mindful about it now.”
Riley Green on His Toby Keith-Inspired Track
Given Green’s love for Keith, it’s no surprise that he wound up honoring the late singer on his forthcoming album, That’s Just Me, which is due out Sept. 18.
“I’m not that much of a planner or even that much of a deep thinker,” Green said. “There’s not a lot of premeditated things that happened in my life.”
That was certainly the case with “Think As You Drunk.”
“I had the title for a while. I’ve heard everybody make that joke: ‘I’m not as think as you drunk I am,’” Green said. “As soon as it got done, we listened back to it. I said, ‘That sounds like something Toby Keith would’ve written.’”
When that realization set in, Green wanted to find a way to lean in to the song’s Keith-ness.
“We were trying to figure out, ‘How do we honor Toby Keith in a way that’s going to be exactly what I want it to be, which is just the tip of the cap to Toby Keith?’” he said. “I don’t want to take advantage of anything and try to use him to further a song.”
Green sent the track to Keith’s manager, who shared it with the late singer’s family. Keith’s family “loved” the track and signed off on him being part of it.
“We were looking at, what does that mean?” Green recalled. “I was firmly against any type of AI version of his vocals doing my lyric. Dan Huff sent me an edit of just his voice from ‘I Ain’t As Good As I Once Was’ at the end. I thought, ‘That’s just a perfect little surprise, tip of the cap, and a great little moment in the song.’”
Keith’s family agreed, and the rest is history.
Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images for Spotify
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