Riley Green and Theo Von bond over the grounding power of manual labor — Green owns 1,780 acres in Alabama and rides bulldozers to decompress from touring, arguing that physical work with a visible end result is the mental reset that music's endless treadmill never provides. The conversation winds through Green's small-town Alabama roots, his breakout hit 'Grandpa's Never Die' (for which he gave his grandfathers co-writer credits), and his early days playing four-hour sets under a beach tent in Florida for $150 a show.
Key Moments
Riley Green
“I bought it in like little pieces here. Little every time I go down there, I'm calling my neighbors up, see if anybody wants to sell anything. But my granddaddy Buford's brother, my uncle Bill, had some property that I grew up running around on. It was 141 acres and I bought that first and then just since then, I've grown it.”
Riley describes how he assembled his 1,780-acre property in Alabama by buying adjacent parcels from neighbors over time.
“I've always enjoyed the kind of work where you can see what you did at the end of the day. I love that about construction work. But that's something you don't get in what we do. Like, yeah, there's a lot of accolades and big moments and highs out of it. But as far as like what we do never has an end. You're never finished with what we're doing.”
Riley is explaining why riding bulldozers on his Alabama land is such a mental relief compared to the never-ending nature of touring and making music.
“I give my manager a hard time cuz uh I won ACM award in uh 2020 and they call me and they're like, 'Hey, you need to do a Zoom with the label.' And so I come, I don't have the computer. So I go over to their place and they got it all set up and there's my president of my label and the vice president, everybody. And I'm like, what are we talking about? And then Keith Urban comes on.”
Riley tells the story of finding out he won an ACM award in a roundabout, unannounced Zoom call, illustrating his frustration with being surprised instead of informed in advance.
“My granddaddy Buford loved country music. He'd sit around with the old epohone guitar when I was a kid and we'd sit around and kind of play. And we ended up turning his parents' house, my great-grandparents, into a music hall. And on Friday nights, all these old people would come out there and play and tell jokes.”
Riley explains the deep family roots behind his hit song 'Grandpa's Never Die,' tracing his musical upbringing to his grandfather Buford.
Riley Green is a country musician and songwriter from Jacksonville, Alabama. He's known for hits like 'Grandpa's Never Die' and is currently on his 'Cowboy as It Gets' tour. His new album, 'That's Just Me,' is set for release on September 18th. He grew up in a small community outside Jacksonville and got his start playing venues like the Soul Kitchen in Mobile, Alabama.
Takeaways
1
Land acquisition as incremental wealth-building strategy Green built a 1,780-acre property not through a single purchase but by repeatedly calling neighbors to ask if they wanted to sell, starting with 141 acres from his great-uncle. This patient, relationship-driven accumulation approach is replicable for anyone looking to build physical assets in rural areas. Every improvement — cleared fields, dug lakes, new roads — also compounds the land's value.
2
Give collaborators formal credit to honor real contributions Riley put both of his grandfathers as co-writers on 'Grandpa's Never Die,' the song inspired by them, giving them official songwriter credit and royalties. Beyond being a meaningful personal gesture, this reflects a broader principle: when someone's life or story substantially shapes your creative work, formal acknowledgment — not just a thank-you — is both fair and lasting. One grandfather died in 2010 before the song became a hit, making the credit a form of legacy.
3
Visible results combat the treadmill of creative work Riley Green argues that manual labor — bulldozing fields, digging lakes — offers something touring and songwriting never can: a finished product you can see at day's end. For anyone in a creative or performance career with no clear stopping point, finding a tangible craft or physical project can serve as a genuine psychological anchor. The contrast he draws is concrete: music's 'accolades and highs' don't substitute for the satisfaction of a completed task.
4
Being told good news beats being surprised by it Green recounts winning a 2020 ACM Award via a confusing Zoom call with Keith Urban — resulting in press articles describing him as seeming to 'not care' because he was simply confused. His point: he can perform excitement convincingly if given 10 minutes of advance notice, but manufactured surprise removes his agency and backfires publicly. For managers and PR teams, this is a practical reminder that scripted surprises often serve the organizer's narrative more than the recipient's.
5
Early-career dues: brutal gigs build durable resilience Riley played four-hour daily beach sets in Florida for $150 a show, setting up his own tent and speakers, with nobody in the crowd listening. Rather than filtering those years out, he references them as foundational — the grind created the stamina and perspective that sustains him on tour now. For anyone early in a performance or creative career, the unglamorous repetition of low-stakes gigs compounds into craft in ways that shortcuts don't.
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Small-town multi-generational proximity shapes creative identity Green grew up with all four grandparents in the same town, seeing them daily, attending his great-grandparents' home-turned-music-hall on Friday nights. He credits this density of intergenerational contact as the direct source of his songwriting voice and values. The implication for creative professionals is that proximity to community elders — not just formal mentors — is an underrated input to authentic artistic output.