“I Make Country Music The Way That I Love It”: Zach Top Dives Into His Biggest Influences

Safe to say he’s doing a pretty good job so far.

With country music being the biggest it’s ever been, arguably ever, there is no shortage of star power in the genre as of late. From Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen taking their respective folk and rap influences to new heights, to Ella Langley making a push as an all-genre star with the massive success of “Choosin’ Texas,” it’s hard to point to just who’s the hottest in country music on any given day. From a strictly traditional standpoint, however, it’s hard to beat Zach Top lately.

Simply put, Top seems to be everywhere these days. Riding the highs of his debut album last year and his highly-successful sophomore effort this year, Ain’t In It For My Health, the Washington native has simply flown through the ranks in country music over the past two years. Whether it’s his ACM win for New Male Artist this past April, his five CMA nominations and a win for Best New Artist this November, his high praise from fellow artists such as Dierks Bentley or his continued domination on social media, Top has, without a doubt, become the genre’s new “it” artist.

Though he’s obviously scored a plethora of major hits both online and on the charts with the likes of “I Never Lie,” “Use Me,” “South of Sanity” and more, he’s also proven himself as the quintessential human jukebox when it comes to delivering phenomenal covers of different songs across multiple eras. From Chris Stapleton’s “Nobody to Blame” and Billy Currington’s “Good Directions” to George Strait’s “Nobody In His Right Mind Would Have Left Her,” Conway Twitty’s “Slow Hand” and many more, the Washington native has yet to meet a classic song that he cannot perform flawlessly.

Recently, the Country Music Hall of Fame debuted their new exhibit, American Currents: State of the Music, which features some of the brightest stars of today, including the likes of Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Zach Bryan, The Red Clay Strays, Turnpike Troubadours and many more.

Of course, since Top is one of the hottest names in the genre recently, he was also featured, and yesterday, the hall of fame released a spotlight on the 28-year-old singer/songwriter, where he discussed his early influences and more.

To begin the spotlight, he dove into the fact that many label him as a 90s-throwback artist. To Top, however, he noted that the sound you hear from him is simply what he has always felt was true country music.

“I think I get a lot of labels, you know, ’90s country’ or ‘classic country’ or whatever. Throwback, old school, whatever you want to call it, but I think it’s just ‘country’ country.”

The “Sounds Like the Radio” singer would then dive into what made him fall in love with the genre. Growing up with the likes of George Strait, Alan Jackson and more, Top would point to his father’s career in the livestock industry as one of the main reasons country music was ingrained in him at a young age.

“I think the reason I love country, one, just ’cause my parents loved it. They always had it playing. George Strait, Alan Jackson, all that [Merle] Haggard, [George] Jones, good ‘ol stuff, they had that playing around the house That’s the reason I think I probably loved it.

My dad works in the livestock industry, always has, so [I] got to grow up around plenty of cowboys and play a little bit of cowboy myself. I think I just fell in love with those cowboy songs just ’cause that felt like the stuff you needed to listen to when we’re riding out to the ranch to go feed cows or check fence or whatever.”

Top would also note how important the early work of Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley were to him as he became more interested in he bluegrass scene, where he’d ultimately find himself for years at a young age before breaking out in 2024 upon the release of Cold Beer & Country Music in 2024.

I was playing them songs, and that’s the stuff I loved. It felt like a very natural, organic transition to me. Obviously, it’s been done a bunch before. Whitley’s a great example of it. Ricky Skaggs [is] another good one, Vince Gill, too. It definitely wasn’t no groundbreaking path, but it felt very natural to me. I try to just make country music the way that I love it and the way that I grew up on it kind of.”

Given the incredible amount of success both critically and commercially over the past three years, highlighted by his Best New Artist win at last year’s CMA Awards, it’s safe to say that Top’s strategy of making country music the way he loves has been working pretty damn well.

Watch here: