Riley Green Was Once Told He Couldn’t Open For Travis Tritt Because He Didn’t Have Enough Facebook Followers

Lately, Riley Green has been nothing short of dominant. Between the success of both “Worst Way” and his feature on Ella Langley’s “you look like you love me,” the seemingly never-ending dating rumors surrounding him and various artists and his popularity on social media, Green has been a force to be reckoned with over the past year.

With over 2.5 million followers on Instagram, 1.6 million on TikTok, 753,000 on Facebook and an additional 160,000 on X, Green has been putting up major numbers online. However, there was a time when he couldn’t open for Travis Tritt… because he didn’t have enough Facebook followers.

Appearing on the Pat McAfee Show for the first time today, Green sat down to talk about everything from college football and his new Nashville bar, Riley Green’s Duck Blind, to his workout motivation and more.

While talking about the early days of his career, the “Jesus Saves” singer noted how he was still working in construction while trying to break into the music business. Despite being a relatively unknown name at the time, he recalled getting one of his big live show breaks around 2014 or 2015 at a sold-out show in Birmingham.

“A guy called me from Birmingham. It was a venue called Iron City, and it held 1,300 people. I remember going and watching Chris Stapleton play there, and it was empty. This is before he really blew up, and I was like, ‘Man, there’s no way. Nobody will be there. [It’ll] be empty.’ And he said, ‘Man, I just keep hearing your name. Come down here and play it. 1,300 people showed up. I had no clue anybody knew who I was, and Birmingham was an hour from where I grew up. I was like, ‘Oh well, there’s something going on here.'”

With gaining momentum, Green was then contacted by a friend of his who worked with Sam Hunt to open for Travis Tritt. Despite the success of his life shows in the area at the time, Green revealed that he couldn’t open for them because he didn’t have enough followers on Facebook.

“I had a buddy that worked with Sam Hunt call me because he knew I did music. He said, ‘Man, we got an offer to go open for Travis Tritt. We can’t do it. I’m gonna put your name in the hat…’ He called me back and said, ‘Man, you don’t have enough followers on Facebook.’ I was like, ‘I don’t even really have Facebook. What does that got to do with anything?'”

Realizing how big of a force social media was (and still is even more today), Green knew he had to up his game:

“Then I realized social media was a big part of it and all that, so I got all that stuff.”

Though the prospect of passing on Green simply because he wasn’t moving the needle on social media at the time seems ridiculous, that’s unfortunately part of the music business at this point. Love it or hate it, it’s the number one tool these days for artist discovery. Luckily for Green, it seemed like he figured out the game of social media pretty quickly, especially nowadays with him and his team posting a bunch of high-quality content ranging from unreleased songs and tour photos to batting practice videos with various MLB teams.

Watch here:

Riley Green Tour Dates:

August 15 – Indianapolis, IN
August 16 – Sainte-Hélène-de-Kamouraska, Canada
August 17 – Calgary, Canada
August 21 – Bonner, MT
August 22 – Idaho Falls, ID
August 23 – Nampa, ID
August 25 – Morrison, CO
August 28 – Corning, CA
August 29 – Nashville, TN
August 30 – Puyallup, WAThe post Riley Green Was Once Told He Couldn’t Open For Travis Tritt Because He Didn’t Have Enough Facebook Followers first appeared on Whiskey Riff.