Riley Green connected with an intimate audience in a “full circle moment” in Nashville, Tennessee.

The country star, 37, recently took the stage at Riley Green's Duck Blind in Nashville’s Midtown neighborhood, performing some of his signature traditional country ballads at a surprise pop-up event with HeyDude. It’s a stage that Green knew well, has known for years, long before he made the venue his own.

“It’s so awesome to have my own bar in Nashville. I always jokingly say there’s one bar I can’t get thrown out of, and it’s mine,” he said with a laugh in a recent interview with iHeartCountry. “It’s such a full circle moment because the building that my Duck Blind bar was in, was also called Winner’s when I first came to town. It was connected to a bar called Loser’s, and that’s where very relationship I’ve made in town started. Every songwriter, every other artist, everybody’s played there. And it’s cool to be able to see these new, up-and-coming artists playing in that same room, on that same stage, and have my name associated with it. It’s such a cool thing. And it’s a gathering spot for all outdoorsmen, outdoor women, who come through town and it’s a great place to go find new music and find new artists.”

Green hosted the pop-up event in the midst of the hustle and bustle of CMA Awards week last month. Green scored a few awards at the 59th annual show: Single of the Year, Song of the Year and Music Video of the Year. It was all for “you look like you love me,” his viral duet with fellow Alabama-born country artist Ella Langley. The Don’t Mind If I Do hitmaker said “it’s a big win,” for a “very traditional country song. …To have a song like this that stays around forever, I wouldn’t trade that for 10 No. 1s. It’s a pretty cool thing.

“There’s several songs that have surprised me a lot in the last year or so,” Green said, pointing out “Worst Way” and the title track of his latest studio record, which is another duet with Langley. “There’s so many new ways now to gauge a song’s success and whether or not it’s a hit with all these different avenues of social media. For me, ‘you look like you love me,’ I remember the day after it came out, you opened your phone and you heard it everywhere you went. It was on everybody’s TikTok. And ‘Don’t Mind If I Do’ has been the same way (as) ‘you look like you love me,’ and ‘Worst Way’ have all been those type of songs. So, it’s really cool to see that.There’s so many new ways now to gauge a song’s success and whether or not it’s a hit with all these different avenues of social media. For me, ‘you look like you love me,’ I remember the day after it came out, you opened your phone and you heard it everywhere you went. It was on everybody’s TikTok. And ‘Don’t Mind If I Do’ has been the same way (as) ‘you look like you love me,’ and ‘Worst Way’ have all been those type of songs. So, it’s really cool to see that. …Any time the storytelling part of country music is winning is definitely a great time for me.”

Green launched his career in music in 2018 after years of working in construction. He started performing in “a lot of small, hole-in-the-wall kind of bars,” with intimate audiences like the one at Duck Blind. The country star, who says he’s “always been a pretty regular guy,” said timing has been key (he noted that 10 years ago, he isn’t sure his traditional style would’ve fit into the pop-country scene). The version of himself who worked in construction “wouldn’t believe it,” Green said of his career now. “There’s still times it’s hard for me to believe…I hadn’t ever been on a plane before I signed a record deal in 2018, so it’s a crazy change in my lifestyle.

“I don’t think in my wildest dreams I imagined I’d be doing what I’m doing now,” Green continued, later hinting at “certainly some new music” and more performance dates in 2026. “But it’s certainly something I appreciate, probably more because it was a tough come-up for me. When music started, it wasn’t something that came easily. There was no big break or anything, I just played every bar there was and I wrote 30 bad songs to find a good one in there, and I’ve been really fortunate to have the opportunities I’ve got.”

Michael J.