Zach Bryan

With his sparse, impassioned country music, Zach Bryan is a 21st-century torch holder for three chords and the truth. Born in Japan to U.S. Navy parents in 1996, he grew up in Oklahoma, and started writing songs as a teenager that were steeped in the diverse Red-Dirt music traditions of his home state. On leave from his own Navy service in Florida, he recorded his 2019 debut, DeAnn, named after his late mother, and established himself as a poignant lyricist and powerful singer. Two years later, those gifts earned him his Grand Ole Opry debut, a swift rise buoyed by resonant songs about love and loss that eschew country-radio tropes to view life through a clear lens. “I believe the best songs are written after the best living’s done,” Bryan told Apple Music about his 2022 triple album, American Heartbreak. It’s clear from Bryan’s body of work that he’s already lived plenty; judging from how prolific he is, he has a lot of living left to do, too.