Riley Green is a busy man. Between releasing new music, touring, his new gig as a coach on The Voice, exploring more acting roles, and becoming one of Nashville’s biggest celebrities, he doesn’t have a lot of free time. Not that he’s complaining, at least not much.
“The biggest battle I face in my career now is just that I’m sleepy all the time,” Green tells Billboard. “And it doesn’t do well during a country music show to be yawning on the stage.”
Still, Green becoming a household name has done little to change who he is on the inside, thanks to his Alabama upbringing.
“I was just brought up to know how to treat people and how to talk to people [with] a certain level of respect. My granddaddy Buford used to give me and my cousins handshake competitions when we were kids,” Green says. “There’s going to be some things thrown at you when you’re doing interviews, especially in other countries, and you just got to kind of roll with it [and] get over yourself a little bit.”
What Riley Green Says About His Success
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Green is easily recognized almost everywhere he goes now. It’s a minor inconvenience, one he says is harder for those who work for him than on him personally.
“It probably hasn’t changed as much on my end as it has my team’s,” Green acknowledges. “Like the amount of thought they have to put in, in how to get me from this place to that place. It’s gotten to be where airports are pretty rough at times, and we’re having to fly private a little more often.
“It’s a good problem to have,” he adds. “Nobody wanted a picture with me when I was building houses.”
Now 37, Green is grateful he didn’t start out as a country music singer. If he had, the results would likely have been detrimental, both to him and his career.
“I’d gone through my dumber years,” Green says. “If this had happened to me when I was 22, it would have been mayhem. Just the level of maturity it takes to have this much attention on you is pretty tough, and I still don’t know every day that I have enough.”
Riley Green Opens Up About Being On ‘The Voice’
Green will join Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine, and Queen Latifah for the upcoming season of The Voice. It’s an opportunity that Green is grateful for, even if he knows it will stretch him in entirely new ways.
“Obviously, my career in country music has grown quite a bit over the last few years,” Green says. “But when you start talking about something like The Voice and being in front of an audience that probably hasn’t heard of me before — it’s exciting to be in a completely different world than [country music] and hopefully reach some brand-new fans.”
In a separate interview, Green says he was offered the role in large part because of his ability to show off another side of himself besides just being a country singer.
“There were mentions that there was interest, that I might be a possible candidate,” Green explains on Country Coutndown USA. “We were in LA, and I did a show at the Grammy Museum, and we did a Q&A before the show. We had a good rapport, and that got me the job.”
Photo Credit: CMA / Natasha Moustache