Music is meant to feel “lived-in,” not unlike a favorite old jacket or a first car. At least that’s what multiplatinum two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning Arkansas-born and Nashville-based maverick Zach Williams would say. Through a fusion of southern rock spirit and country soul, Zach creates music with an exterior which is worn down in the best way, but all heart underneath rough guitar riffs and gravelly vocals.

You’ll not only hear his journey in the music, but you’ll also see it in his unfiltered storytelling—how he went from a tiny town to international stardom, selling out shows, toppling charts, and collaborating with the likes of Dolly Parton. Along the way, he battled addiction, anxiety, and insecurity, coming out on the other side with
a whole lot to say.

After living through the lowest of lows and the highest of highs, he made a choice to trust his gut more than ever in 2021. Doing so had certainly served him well up to this point, so he wholeheartedly embraced his most formative inspirations, including rock and old school country. He also didn’t hold anything back during the writing, confronting all of those moments with a stark honesty and a sharp pen honed over the decade preceding. He ultimately needed to live through it in order to commit it to paper.

“I love music that hits me in a place where I think, ‘Man, that guy or girl has lived through it right there’,” he exclaims. “I believe you can hear it in the break and tremble of the vocals. I’m going to keep all the cracks and truth in my music.”