At the time that he had begun recording tracks that would make his sprawling 2022 third album “American Heartbreak,” Zach Bryan had already become a groundswell musician. The Oklahoman struck a chord with his true blue American songs, uploading YouTube videos of himself performing and collecting a fan base —largely devoted to his exposed nerve, underdog aesthetic — along the way. A former Army brat, the 27-year-old chased a stint in the Navy with online virality, stripping away the highly polished beer-and-whiskey veneer that’s popular in the Nashville music scene.
For Ryan Hadlock, a veteran producer with credits on projects from the Lumineers and the Gossip, collaborating with Bryan for “Heartbreak” and its breakthrough single “Something in the Orange” made sense. He’s often drawn to artists who play chicken with the conventions of what their designated genres expect, and Bryan has long defied what it means to be a country star. “Am I going to put him in a box of, you are a country artist? No, he’s a singer-songwriter with a lot of soul,” he says. “With Zach’s stuff or anything I do, I try to find something special and unique about that artist and their song and that vibe and then present that to the world.”
Hadlock initially connected with Bryan through Stefan Max, who currently co-manages the singer with Danny Kang and at the time was senior director of A&R at Atlantic Records. Hadlock had worked with Max on Vance Joy’s 2014 breakthrough debut and invited Bryan out to his Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, WA. They collaborated on “From Austin,” Bryan’s first single to make a dent on the country charts, before heading into “Orange,” a tried-and-true hit that made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 without being sent to country radio and ultimately peaked at No. 10.
Bryan had initially written “Orange” in a cabin in Wisconsin, and during the session, he performed a barebones version of the raw, longing tune on the couch next to Hadlock. They immediately set to work, with Bryan tracking his vocals and guitar in the open recording studio. Hadlock captured the takes on tape and loaded them into ProTools, layering in lap steel, upright bass, and a spare drum. With a little studio polish, “Orange” was finished in a day. “once we got it done, Zach was crying, we were crying in the control room,” says Hadlock. “We were like, oh my god, this is so beautiful.”
“Orange” helped propel Bryan into the mainstream, amassing more than 1.4 billion streams to date and earning him a Grammy nomination for best country solo performance earlier this year. As the record began to pick up steam, his label Warner Records kicked into gear to nurture the song’s growth. Mike Chester, who oversees promotion and streaming/commerce at Warner, championed the track from the start and helped propel it to the top of various cross-genre charts including rock, folk and alternative. Meanwhile, his A&R Miles Gersh played a key role in driving the success of “Heartbreak” and “Orange,” working hand in hand with partners and tastemakers to keep the heartbeat of the song alive.
Their efforts cultivated Bryan as one of the biggest stars in popular music, and last year, he ended his race to the top as the most streamed new artist on Spotify. It set the stage for his eponymous chart-topping fourth album this past August, and secured him his first Hot 100 No. 1 with “I Remember Everything” featuring Kacey Musgraves. A massive tour is on the horizon for 2024, with arena dates stretching to December.
“The biggest success I could possibly have is when I work with an artist not a lot of people know about and then help them to make that step into, look, I get to do another album, another song, I get to go on this tour and continue this dream of mine,” says Hadlock. “And that’s one of the big motivators and reasons I do this: to help young artists develop their unique vibe and figure out a way to send that to the world so that it instantly sounds like them.”
SONGWRITER: Zachary Lane Bryan
PRODUCER: Ryan Hadlock
LABEL: Belting Bronco/Warner Records
HITMAKERS:
Danny Kang and Stefan Max, managers
Ryan Hadlock, producer
Miles Gersh, VP of A&R, Warner Records
Mike Chester, EVP of Promotion & Commerce, Warner Records
PUBLISHERS:Warner-Tamerlane
