Riley Green’s third studio album, Don’t Mind If I Do, is here and the singer-songwriter is taking fans behind the songs with an installment of Audacy’s On The Record special.
LISTEN NOW: Riley Green - On The Record
With the album inspired by his small-town upbringing, Green felt the title was appropriate as it’s a phrase he recalls hearing a lot during childhood. “I love writing songs that are common phrases that I heard growing up, especially in small-town, rural Alabama,” he disclosed during his time hosting Audacy’s On The Record. “‘Don’t mind if I do,’ to me, was always kind of one of those things where you maybe know you shouldn’t, but you kinda want to. Maybe that’s how people look at the album.”
Anyone who takes a listen will surely be glad they did as the project delivers more of Green’s signature Country sound, message, and morals that fans have fallen in love with. The epitome of it all is Green’s lead single off the project, “Damn Good Day To Leave.”
“‘Damn Good Day To Leave,’ is what I would call a happy break-up song, if there is such a thing,” he expressed. “It was just inspired by the attitude of, ‘she leaves, but it doesn’t hurt near as bad when the fish are biting or it’s sunny out. I think that was kinda the attitude my grandaddy always had - nothing got him rattled . His biggest decision during the day was whether he was going golfin’ or fishin’.”
Green’s granddaddy isn’t the only family member who inspired a part of the album. Riley also shared his Dad gets his very own song with the track, “Chip Off The Ol’ Block.” “This song is about my Dad… it’s cool to be able to write songs about your family,” he expressed. “I’m sure he is pretty proud of that.”
While much of the inspiration came from his family and upbringing, Green called in some help from a few fellow Country pals for features on the album, the first being Luke Bryan on “Reel Problems.”
“I got Luke on the record by sending him a text message and telling him I had a song about bass fishing. I know he’s a bigger fisherman, so I thought that might make him want to jump on it,” Riley shared. “Turns out all you have to do is text Luke Bryan if you want him to do a song with you and he’ll jump on it.”
Also featured is Ella Langley, who joins Green on the title track. “Me and Ella had a lot of success with, “You Look Like You Love Me,” Riley said of the pair’s duet from Langley’s album Hungover, that is currently climbing the charts. “I wrote ‘Don’t Mind If I Do,’ and asked her to put a vocal on it so I could potentially pitch it to see who I was going to get to be the female feature. She did such a great job in the studio, I just couldn’t picture anybody doing it better, it worked out great, and it’s nice to have two hit songs with Ella, especially with her being on tour with me.”
While Riley called on some pals for parts of the project, there are other parts he tackled completely solo. With songwriting credit on 11 of the tracks, three of those are completely solo writes by Green. They include, “Don’t Mind If I Do,” “Jesus Saves,” and “Worst Way.”
“I think I write songs by myself a lot, like ‘Jesus Saves’ because those songs that have some kind of emotion or make me feel some type of emotion are always where I tend to go as a songwriter,” he shared. “Some of my favorite song are old, sad George Jones songs and songs that make me feels some certain type of way and I think this song, hopefully does that for a lot of people when they listen to it.”
It isn’t all sad and sappy, Green also showcases his Country party side with tracks like, “Good Morning From Mexico,” which he actually wrote from Mexico. “When I wrote Good Morning From Mexico, I was actually in Mexico, I was down playin’ Crash My Playa with Luke Bryan,” he revealed. “The idea hit me and it turned into a really fun song — One of my favorite songs on the record.”
Hear “Good Morning From Mexico,” and all the other tracks from Green’s third studio album, Don’t Mind If I Do, available now -- and hear the stories behind the songs by checking out his installment of Audacy’s On The Record above.
Related
Want more Riley? Following his album release, Green is set to perform at Audacy’s sold-out Stars and Strings concert, presented by Discover®, in Hollywood, FL. He’ll join fellow Country stars Jordan Davis, Parker McCollum, Megan Moroney, Nate Smith and Bailey Zimmerman for a one-of-a-kind writer’s round style show taking place November 14, at Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. More information is available at StarsAndStrings.com.