The “Oklahoma Smokeshow” singer-songwriter drops an acoustic performance video
Zach Bryan finds himself having an existential crisis and longing for some peace in “Hey, Driver,” a song he released as an acoustic performance video on Friday. The tune doesn’t appear on any of the ACM Award-winning Oklahoma songwriter’s albums to date.
“Hey driver, pull on over, I’m in a fight with god/and this Carolina shoulder is the place I’m getting’ off,” Bryan sings at the top of the song, accompanied by an acoustic guitar and banjo player in a video filmed at night in an outdoor public space. It’s world-weary and earnest like much of Bryan’s work, with him dreaming about retiring to a place where “they still put sugar in their iced tea/where the women are fine and the love is fair.”
Little is known about Bryan’s next album project. In late 2022, Bryan said his new album would be called Writers and Fighters and it was going to be released in February, but he called that off. More recently, he said his next album would only have 11 songs, as opposed to the 30+ that made the cut for the hyper-prolific songwriter’s 2022 release American Heartbreak. “I’m in my quality over quantity era,” he tweeted. It’s not known whether “Hey, Driver” will be featured.
Bryan’s rapid rise in the Covid era has made him one of the biggest new stars in folk, Americana, and country music. In response to high demand for his tickets, and in an effort to combat predatory pricing, Bryan plotted his Burn Burn Burn American Tour by circumventing Live Nation / Ticketmaster venues, sticking exclusively to AXS venues and a handful of other spots with their own proprietary systems. With his stipulation, the ticket prices do not exceed $130 (plus a small service fee) and can only be resold in a special Zach Bryan marketplace. This weekend, he heads to Albany, New York, and London, Ontario, before two nights in his adopted home base of Philadelphia next week.