“It Was So Forward”: Riley Green Admits He Was Hesitant to Release Fan-Favorite Track “Worst Way”

His first solo chart-topper.

Riley Green is gearing up to release his new album That’s Just Me on Friday, September 18th, and ahead of the big release, Riley sat down for an interview with sports personality Pat McAfee for Spotify. He reflected on his success thus far and what his strategy was for this next record. Of course, the challenge is always to stay true to who you are as an artist, while also keeping the music fresh and exciting for fans.

Riley has always been a rare mainstream artist who sticks to that decidedly country sound. And even with his massive success, he tries to always include songs about his life in “small town Alabama” and things like that, which he’s written about since the beginning:

“Every year that things are going well and it grows and things get bigger, I always tend to make sure I find a way to write from that same place that got me here. Which is just small town Alabama where I grew up.

So I always try to go home and write, at least four or five songs that are going to be on every record from that mindset of just how I grew up and my family values, like I said, things I wrote about from the beginning.”

He then brought up his song “Worst Way,” which started out on his EP Way Out Here in 2024. Then, it was sent to country radio in early 2025 as the lead single from his third studio album Don’t Mind If I Do (2024), ultimately becoming his third #1 on the country charts, and his first as a solo artist. It even became a minor crossover hit, peaking at #20 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Of course, it became an even bigger hit when Riley released the super sultry, and somewhat humorous music video, and Riley admitted that he was a little nervous about releasing it because he hadn’t written a lot of love songs, especially ones that “forward.”

He’s not the first to release a song like that, and he’s previously cited Eric Church’s “Like a Wrecking Ball” as an inspiration for it, and it’s hard to imagine he ever thought it wouldn’t be a hit, especially with the ladies…

It obviously paid off, and Riley has taken similar risks on this new record, saying that gave him the confidence to try different things with his music and fans will hear that in the music he’s about to release:

“Every record, I want to try to push myself musically a little bit into something that I’m not necessarily comfortable with. My last record, it was ‘Worst Way.’ I hadn’t really written a love song and that was a little forward.

And I remember writing it and I thought, man, is this okay? Is it going to work? It became a big song for me. So musically, I tried to do some things that were a little out of my comfort zone on this record.”

So far from That’s Just Me, Riley has released five songs including the title track, “My Way,” “Think As You Drunk,” “Go Again” (featuring Hannah MacFarland) and “Imagine That.” There will be features from country legends on the album too, with Brooks & Dunn on “Pave All Them Dirt Roads” and Alabama’s Randy Owen on “Lookout Mountain.”

It’s shaping up to be a really great album, and I’m excited to get to hear it all soon.

And in terms of “Worst Way” being a risk, I don’t know, this song doesn’t seem like a huge risk to me…

“Worst Way”