Riley Green is doing a little bit of everything lately, acting, coaching on 'The Voice,' and releasing his new album, 'That’s Just Me,' out everywhere on September 18. The singer recently stopped by 'Katie & Company' to talk about it all during the 'Superstar Power Hour.'
“I think stylistically it's got a lot of different types of songs on it,” Riley says of his upcoming album. “I think that was something that was so great about the album, ‘Don't Mind If I Do.’ It had a lot of, you know, different moods, and I always tend to write sad Country songs and people don't want to cry all day long. So I have some, you know, ‘beer up in the air,’ drinking songs like ‘Think You're Drunk,’ and I've got some beach songs. There's a lot of different types of moments on here.”
Riley credits influences like Toby Keith and Blake Shelton for demonstrating how to effectively balance humor, casual fun, and serious storytelling within Country music. “Toby was so good at those lighthearted fun songs, you know, so it's cool to have that kind of song on the record.”
'That’s Just Me' also features some major collabs for Green, including Brooks & Dunn, Hannah McFarland, Jake Worthington, and Randy Owen from Alabama. “For a kid from Alabama, small town, not too far from Fort Payne, it's just so cool to have truly one of my heroes on a song.”
Just days away from the premiere of 'The Voice' with Riley Green taking a turn in the turning chair as coach, we had to ask how this role was different from his previous television experience on 'Marshals.'
“I'm on there with Queen Latifah, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine, it's gonna be fun to watch,” he smiles. “This was a lot easier than acting. When I was on 'Marshals,' I'm playing a former Marine with PTSD and there's something that's very serious and you wanna get that right. It's something I haven't lived through. I've got to get out of my skin, and on ‘The Voice’ I'm just being me, and it was really so helpful to have seen Blake on there and what he does so well with his personality, his sense of humor, because I knew what I liked about it. So I could kind of say, ‘OK, well I'm gonna do my version of that.’”
“All you have to do is just make fun of Adam for being old, talk about how famous Queen Latifah is, and then talk about how much more Country you are than Kelly Clarkson so that they pick you,” he adds. “It's easy. Anybody could do it.”
To hear more from Riley Green, check out the full 'Superstar Power Hour' interview above.
