Zach Bryan

📍Oologah, Oklahoma, USA

“Zach Bryan was born in Japan in April 1996, into a Navy family; both his parents, Dewayne and DeAnn, had served, and his family moved around before settling, when he was in eighth grade, in Oologah, Oklahoma. Oologah is a small town of a few thousand people north-east of Tulsa, on the edge of a big reservoir, among cattle ranches and prairie. It is also the birthplace of the cowboy humorist Will Rogers, and it is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. He spent his teenage years there, and it was where, he has said, he really became himself. He started writing songs at fourteen, sitting with a guitar and writing about his friends, his family and the town around him. He loved the music of Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen and the Oklahoma red-dirt songwriters, and he spent his free time outdoors with friends. His parents divorced when he was twelve, and his mother, to whom he was very close, died in 2016; he later named his first album, DeAnn, after her. At seventeen he followed his family's tradition and enlisted in the Navy, serving for eight years. While stationed in Washington state, he wrote and recorded songs on his phone and posted them online, often filmed outdoors with friends. In 2019 a video of his song Heading South went viral, and in 2021 he was honourably discharged to make music full-time. His raw, heartfelt songs, such as Something in the Orange, have made him one of the biggest names in country and Americana, and they are full of the small-town Oklahoma life he grew up with.”

Sources: gigwise.com Wikipedia: Zach Bryan