Riley Green Almost Turned Down A Venue In Alabama Because Chris Stapleton Barely Sold Any Tickets There… & He Ended Up Selling It Out

Not too shabby…

Riley Green has had a heck of a last several years, releasing a couple new albums, releasing chart-topping hits and winning big awards at the ACM’s, in addition to selling out shows all over the country and earning Gold and Platinum hits.

And if you’re like me, the first time you heard of Riley was when you heard “Bury Me in Dixie” years back… way before he ever had a record deal or moved to Nashville. It must’ve been when I was in college, but I just remember a couple of my friends playing the song and it caught my attention immediately. I’d never heard someone describe what it was like to grow up in the south quite that way before.

If you switched out some of the names of different towns and teams, it really felt like Riley was singing about my hometown. He’s said before when he wrote it he was just trying to write a song about where he grew up in Alabama, and as time went on and he played it live, he realized he wrote a song about growing up in the south.

From there, I only got more and more into his music and his neo-traditional country sound that was seemingly impossible to find even a few years ago, notably in the mainstream. His breakout EP from 2017 Outlaws Like Us is still one of my favorites, and during an appearance on the Pat McAffee show today, Riley talked about how his music first getting out and becoming popular around his home state of Alabama was pretty much by accident.

He had graduated college, and was working in construction framing houses and playing shows at the local Mexican restaurant every Friday night. He had a guy who owned a venue called Iron City in Birmingham, about an hour away from where Riley’s from in Jacksonville, call him to come play the 1,300-capacity venue.

Well, not long before that, Riley had seen Chris Stapleton there playing for a nearly empty crowd, so he knew there was no way he’d even sell a ticket and he said no. The guy insisted, because he kept hearing Riley’s name around town, and Riley ended up selling it out. Even though Chris hadn’t become a superstar like he is now yet, that’s still impressive and something Riley can hold onto forever. Talk about bragging rights…

Because of that, Riley realized he might actually have some sort of chance at the whole music thing, however small it might’ve seemed at the time:

“I remember, I was playing a local Mexican restaurant, played it every Friday for like five years… I was still doing construction work at the time, so I was framing houses during the week. 25 years old, probably 2014, ’15, something like that. And a guy called me from Birmingham, there’s is a venue called Iron City that held 1,300 people, and I remember going and watching Chris Stapleton play there and it was like empty.

This was before he really blew up. and I was like, ‘Man, there’s no way. Nobody will be there. It will be empty.’ And he said, ‘Man, just I keep hearing your name. Come down here and play it.’ 1,300 people showed up. I had no clue anybody knew who was in Birmingham, it was an hour from where I grew up. And so I was like, ‘Oh, there’s something going on here.'”

Riley didn’t even know he had money in his TuneCore account at the time, and he also told a funny story about how he realized social media was really important, even back then, to growing his following:

“And I didn’t realize I was getting paid for streams, I had money in an account on TuneCore I didn’t even know about. I had a buddy that worked with Sam Hunt call me, because he knew I did music. He said, ‘Man, we got an offered to go open for Travis Tritt. We can’t do it. I’m gonna put your name in the hat.’

I was like, ‘Oh, that would be great.’ And then he called me back said, ‘Man, you don’t have enough followers on Facebook.’ and I was like, ‘I don’t even really have Facebook. What does that have to do with anything?’ So then, I realize social media was a big part of it, and I got all that stuff. It’s great.”

I think that last line was sarcasm, obviously, because he would probably rather just be in the woods as far from technology as possible, but unfortunately that’s the music biz these days…

It’s such a cool story, and pretty unique, considering, in many ways, a lot of it kinda just happened and he went with it. Of course, it took a lot of hard work and talent, too, but it’s very different than how most people do the “Nashville thing” by going to Music City first and working from there. Riley built his fanbase very organically around the south before ever even thinking about singing a record deal, and it’s clearly worked out well for him.

You can watch the video here:

“I was still doing construction work at the time..

I was framing houses during the week..

A guy called me from Birmingham and 1,300 people showed up to my performance”@RileyGreenMusic #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/8EqWjVLRun

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 15, 2025

Riley just announced his Don’t Mind If I Do deluxe album this week, and you can check out the full tracklist below.

Don’t Mind If I Do (Deluxe) Tracklist:

1. “That’s A Mistake”
2. “Change My Mind”
3. “Reel Problems (featuring Luke Bryan)”
4. “Turnin’ Dirt”
5. “Jesus Saves”
6. “Too Early To Drink”
7. “Pick A Place”
8. “Way Out Here”
9. “Waitin’ All Day”
10. “Chip Off The Ol’ Block”
11. “Alchohall Of Fame”
12. “Rather Be”
13. “Good Morning From Mexico”
14. “Torn”
15. “Damn Good Day To Leave”
16. “Looking Back On This”
17. “Don’t Mind If I Do (featuring Ella Langley)”
18. “Worst Way”
19. “Make It Rain”
20. “Cowboy As It Gets (featuring Randy Houser)”
21. “I Just Need You (featuring Hannah McFarland)”
22. “What Am I Supposed To Do Now”
23. “Bet They’re Biting”
24. “One To Willie”

“Don’t Mind If I Do”

The post Riley Green Almost Turned Down A Venue In Alabama Because Chris Stapleton Barely Sold Any Tickets There… & He Ended Up Selling It Out first appeared on Whiskey Riff.