Walker Hayes Responds To Zach Bryan Again With A New Song

When Walker Hayes released his smash hit "Fancy Like" in 2021 his life changed forever. The song hit No. 1 on country radio and gave the singer-songwriter his first GRAMMY  Award nomination.

Hayes took the song to the TODAY Show, Late Night With Seth Meyers, CMA Awards, released a remake featuring Kesha, was featured in a nationwide Applebee's commercial, and filmed a music video with more than 139 million views to date.

With that success came some backlash, most recently from Zach Bryan. It all started earlier this month when the "Something In The Orange" singer replied to a post on X (formerly Twitter) with a tweet saying "Imagine being radio (whoever the hell that is), hearing [Tyler Childers'] Shake the Frost and being like 'no no let's go with the Applebees song'."

Hayes responded the same day to Bryan writing on X, "Big shout to radio for playing dat Applebees song. Zach and Tyler praying y'alls continued success."

Now, Hayes could have responded in a hundred different ways but he chose to play nice in the moment. He took some time to think about the situation with his "buddies," because now he's released a teaser to a new song.

Hayes posted an audio clip to Instagram on Wednesday (1/24) with the following caption:

"Me and my buddies were talking about the whole Zach Bryan thing. They were saying they appreciated how I responded. I confessed that they only saw my best foot forward.I had a hundred smart ass responses in the chamber that I didn’t fire off. Then we got to talking about people in general. Why we get insecure, etc. Mostly about how artists size each other up, compare, and talk trash. It’s obviously our natural human tendency to be a little butt hurt by anyone else’s success. Then we wondered about that. Why on earth we would do that as song writers. Knowing that .0001 percent of us are actually making it in this biz. Took me 18 years to feed my kids with music and I’ll still knock something I hear on the radio cuz I didn’t write it. So, we tried our best to put it all in a Twanger. And this is what we got. I hope it makes y’all talk about stuff that matters."

Click here to see more from Walker Hayes.

Zach Bryan made national headlines last week (9/7) when he was arrested in his home state of Oklahoma. His arrest came after he got out of his truck and confronted an officer who had pulled his bodyguard over for speeding. After the arrest, Zach apologized to his fans, saying that he was in the wrong.

It was also last week when his newly released duet with Kacey Musgraves topped the Billboard Hot 100 song chart. It was his first time topping the chart as well as Musgraves'.

Bryan has been making significant strides in country music since his "Something In The Orange" song became a big hit; in May, he won an Academy of Country Music award for Best New Male Artist, and he was nominated for the New Artist award at the CMA awards in November.

Zach recently released a new album, and according to his social media at the time, he has "no grand explanation" for the 17 songs on the project. In a lengthy post on Instagram (8/25), he said, "I don't have a bulls--- rollout plan to stuff it in front of as many people as I can." He added in the frank post that he would be "grateful" to anyone who listened to it.

The self-described "kid from Oklahoma" thanked people who have "kept the course" with him in the last few years. After saying that the music business has both good and bad, he said the new album is "All Me" at twenty-seven years old. He closed by telling fans he is at a "loss for words" at what a "blessing this life is."

Many fans responded to his post, including one who wrote, "Amazing album." Another fan commented, "The man of the hour is too sweet to be sour." One more of his 2.5 million Instagram followers said, "Such a humble man. True idol for me and all the young men and women out there."

We take a look at what we believe are five Zach Bryan songs we should all know.

A duet with the amazing War & Treaty. The duo are husband and wife Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter. A combination of soul, blues, country, and rock defines their musical style. Zach and Micahel sing the intro to the song, and the duo sings the song's chorus. It sings, "So take me down a road that's a little bit windy / To a place they still put sugar in their iced tea / Where the women are fine and the love is fair / Hey, driver, you can drop me off anywhere."

This is an early song from Bryan. The song was initially released in 2019, but in 2020, it garnered attention on the Internet, gaining over 30 million plays. Bryan stated that he recorded the song behind his barracks when he served in the United States Navy. The music video was shot in his Navy barracks on his phone. As of September 2023, the video has received over 23 million views.

This duet was released in January of 2023. Bryan and pop singer Maggie Rogers co-wrote it. A music video was released simultaneously. The song entered the top 50 of the charts in Canada, Ireland, and the US. It peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Bryan and Rogers performed the song at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on August 23, 2023, as part of Bryan's "Burn, Burn, Burn Tour."

Rich Fury, Amy Sussman./Getty Images

This song is track eleven on his fourth studio album, Zach Bryan, released on August 25, 2023. The song debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming both Bryan and Musgraves' first number-one song on that chart. The haunting chorus includes the lyrics, "A cold shoulder at closing time / You were bеggin' me to stay 'til the sun rose / Strangе words come on out / Of a grown man's mouth when his mind's broke / Pictures and passin' time / You only smile like that when you're drinkin' / I wish I didn't, but I do / Remember every moment on the nights with you."

This song is considered Zach's breakout hit. Bryan said that he wrote the song in a cabin in Wisconsin when it was released. Zach released two versions of the song: the original single version and an entirely different version, which features just his vocals and piano. Bryan also released a music video for the song containing crowd-sourced footage shot by fans that he said in a statement captured the "raw and unfiltered emotion" of the song experience.