Zach John King is carving out a space for himself in the country music industry while staying true to himself and making the kind of music that he loves. Most recently, he released a new EP, Slow Down, which gives listeners an inside look at who he is as a person and as an artist.
Produced by Ryan Wilson, the EP puts the rising star’s signature vocals on full display while highlighting his unique sound that developed through years of fronting an indie rock band before moving to Nashville. He also showcases his authentic storytelling and love for traditional country music that he was raised on. He serves as a co-writer on all six songs, pulling inspiration from real-life moments and honing in on themes of gratitude, heartbreak, and more. The project itself has struck a chord with fans, especially the title track which has already earned over 8.6 million global streams.
The project kicks off an exciting chapter for King, who has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Following an exciting year of touring, King will next perform at this year’s CMAFest, including a performance on the Good Molecules Reverb stage on Sunday, June 8. He will also take the stage at the Ryman and BMI Block Party during on Saturday, June 7. Later on, he will hit the road as an opener for both Gavin Adcock and Dylan Scott, respectively.
Country Now recently sat down with Zach John King to discuss his musical upbringing, his journey to Nashville, his new EP, personal goals and more
Read on to find out more about King in this exclusive Q&A below.
You’ve got such a cool mix of country and alt-rock in your sound. When did you first start blending those styles, and what made you want to take that leap in Nashville?
I had moved from Athens, Georgia. Growing up with country, your grandparents listen to country, your parents listen to country, your cousins, everybody in Georgia listens to country music. That’s what you grow up on. I think I got to high school and I was like, I want to try to be different. I think a lot of people do that. You’re like, ‘I want to be different. I don’t want to be my dad or my grandparents,’ and so I just fell in love with country and alt rock, learned how to play it really well, joined a band in Athens and it was like an indie rock band and then fell in love. Interestingly enough, during Covid, I started listening to more, I had kind of gotten back to the roots. I fell in love with Patsy Cline again, and she was the first artist that I had listened to growing up because my grandma loved her. I kind of fell in love with the songwriting aspect of country music, the storytelling, and then the production style of indie rock. So, when we got to Nashville, it was kind of a trial and error thing but we’re figuring out how to do it in studio. I think we’re getting better and better each time of mixing those two genres. It feels really true to me.
How do you think taking this risk with your sound has impacted your career so far?
Everybody gets compared to other artists. I think whenever I sing with a gritty voice, I get compared to Morgan Wallen and I’m like, ‘okay.’ I mean, it’s a compliment in some respects because he’s the biggest star in the world right now, but in a lot of ways I feel like we’re making something really unique. I feel like the way we’re doing it, as we keep putting music out, it’ll become more and more identifiable. And you’ll be like, ‘oh, that’s a Zach John King song.’
From indie-rock frontman to 24 million streams and counting, what’s been one unforgettable “I made it” moment for you so far?
That’s a good question. I think seeing the actual numbers, I’m not a huge numbers guy. I try not to be. That’s a lie, I check them every day, but I try not to make it a big deal. I try to focus on like, ‘okay, I’m going to make something that I love first, and then if people like it, people like it. If people don’t, people don’t,’ that’s the idea. But for me, I think I realized when I was sitting up one night and I was just looking through the streams and I was like, ‘that’s a lot of plays,’ like it hit me the scale of those amounts. That one was the first moments, and this was only a couple weeks ago, the first moment where I actually kind of went like, ‘whoa, that’s kind of a cool thing. People are actually kind of liking this stuff more than just one song or one moment.’ Then, the live shows have been really the other thing that’s kind of solidified that. People knowing words is a wild thing to me because we write these songs in these little bitty rooms in Nashville with three other people, maybe two other people. It’s a wild thought that somebody in another state or another country knows these words and they’re singing them and they’re owning those songs.
How were you feeling leading up to the release of your new EP, “Slow Down”?
I feel busy. I think that’s a good thing for me. I was telling somebody the other day, I don’t like time to sit and think about this stuff because I get way in my head about it. If I had two days to think about, ‘are the songs going to work? Are people going to like ’em? Is it going to stream?’ I would just drive myself crazy. Staying busy on the road has helped. It’s where I’m really just focused on what’s in my control and I think what’s in my control is playing the best shows we can play, promoting the songs the best way I can promote them. Then, at the end of the day, it’s like writing good music or better yet writing music that I love. I mean, I love it. If you don’t like it, go listen to something else. That’s kind of where my head’s at right now. I’m trying to get better at that. So I’m feeling very excited, but I don’t want to put too many expectations on it. I love the songs and I think I’m trying to convince myself that that’s enough validation for the EP.
Is there an overarching theme for the EP?
Yeah, there is. A lot of times in town, EP’s are just kind of, you pick six singles and you put ’em together and it’s like, ‘oh, there’s your EP’ and there’s nothing wrong with that. It works. But we wanted this one to be like, if you started with track one and you went all the way down, I wanted you to get an idea of who I was as a human being and an artist and kind of hear my story all the way through the good and the bad sides of that. I think you can always write about your flaws and you can always write about the good things about you or the good things about your story, but I want to kind of do both. So it’s kind of split 50/50. It’s written about mistakes I’ve made, like in “Cold Shoulder.” Then, “I Deserve a Heartbreak” was written about things that I regret. Then, on the back end of the record, we have newer songs that are written more about love and more about relationships that I feel like I hold really special. So I hope you listen top to bottom and you’re like, ‘oh, I get this guy. I understand who he is.’
Do you have a favorite song on the project?
Man, I don’t know if I do. Right now, it kind of changes day to day. But right now there’s a song called “She Didn’t Have To.” On the order of it, I think it’s the last song on the project, and it’s probably my favorite song maybe I’ve ever written. Again, that changes every other day. But right now, I’m really loving that song. It feels super authentic to me and it’s really gritty but it’s honest. It’s a really honest love song and I don’t write a lot of those.
Can you share the story behind the track, “Cold Shoulder”?
Basically there was a girl back in my hometown I thought I was going to marry. I mean, that’s just kind of what happens in small towns. You get out of high school and you’re like, ‘oh, this is it. This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I’m going to live here, work here, die here, the whole nine.’ Things changed and I ended up really falling in love with music and figured that was something that I really wanted to do with my life. I hadn’t really known that at the time and essentially that just kind of led to a falling out. She kind of went her way, I went my way. Specifically speaking, I chose to kind of end things, unfortunately on one of the coldest days of the year in Georgia, and it was outside. I remember thinking, ‘that was a pretty terrible thing to do.’ I lived with it for a long time. Then when we were writing, I was like, ‘if we’re going to write this one, it’s got to feel like a movie.’ I wanted it to feel like a movie scene, and so we essentially just wrote it so specifically that you see it when you listen to it. For a minute, I was a little worried that people weren’t going to be able to relate to it because of how specific it was but I think we’re figuring out that the more specific I write, the more people for some reason relate to it. I feel like we did a pretty good job. I feel like it feels like a movie scene when you listen to it.
Could you share a deeper look into the writing process of “Cold Shoulder”?
Yeah, that one was an interesting day. I grew up with both parts, like traditional country and then indie rock and folk, and I love weird guitar tunings. I had come in with my two co-writers that day, and I had figured out this weird open D guitar tuning, and I didn’t know what it was. I started kind of fiddling around with the guitar part at the beginning of the song, and then we just matched that melody. I think the song at first was going to go in a different direction. “Cold Shoulder” had been a hook in my phone for a while, I just didn’t know what it meant. A lot of times in Nashville, we figure out the hook right before we write the song. We figure out how we’re going to finish the song before we even start. Then, sometimes you get lucky and you walk into a hook, and that’s kind of what happened. We found it as we kept writing and we got to the end of the chorus and it was like, ‘oh, there it is.’ It was a really fun day. I think it took two days to finish and then we demoed it and it was just the acoustic guitar. And when we went into the studio, I was like, ‘that’s exactly what I want.’ I want an acoustic guitar. We recorded in one take and then pedal steel, and that was it.
Is there a particular artist you’d love to team up with on a collaboration one day?
I mean, everybody would flip out about [Eric] Church. I think if I got to do anything with Eric Church, I’d flip, I’d lose my mind. But on another side of country music, Brent Cobb might be one of my favorites. He lives, I think he still lives in Georgia farther south from me, but that would be a dream. I just absolutely love his music. I feel like he’s one of those guys where he doesn’t really think about the Nashville thing too much. Again, he’s like, ‘if you like my music, cool. If you don’t, whatever.’ He still lives in Georgia, he didn’t move to Nashville. I think Brent Cobb would be up there on my list. Then, Stephen Wilson Jr. for the coolest music coming out ever. I would be a little intimidated in that room, honestly. I think he’s unbelievably gifted, but he would just be an incredible artist to have as well.
You recently had the opportunity to open for Nate Smith on his Through The Smoke Tour. What was that experience like, and what did you learn from it?
It was incredible. Going into tours, you never know as an opener how it’s going to be. You can be treated really well, you can be treated not so great. It doesn’t really matter because I mean, at the end of the day, you’re the opener. People bought tickets for the headliner. Your job is to give them a warm up. For me, it was one of those things where I didn’t have any expectations on the experience, but I knew that Nate was a super good dude. I walked in there, and from the moment I walked in there, it was like we were treated like family. It was one of the most incredible touring experiences I’ve ever had. I mean, the fans were incredible. His show, his live show is nuts. It’s one of the most energetic shows you’ll ever watch and he treats people so well. I’m not just saying that because I’m an artist. He treated my photographer just like me. Everybody’s treated the same way, and the staff is the same. The day-to-day managers, the tour manager, everybody, as soon as you walk in that door, you’re treated like family. Getting to play in front of incredible fans and big rooms, those were the biggest shows I’ve ever played. It was just an incredible experience and it was awesome to do it with Nate. He’s just such a kind human being.
Earlier this year you performed at C2C, what was it like playing in the UK and Europe?
Man, it was awesome. Like I said, I didn’t think anybody knew the words. In Berlin I was like, ‘nobody’s going to know.’ Seeing people know words that don’t even speak English was insane to me. It’s kind of mind blowing. But the entire stretch, I think the UK and Europe, they just value country music in a different way because it’s not everywhere. In the States, it’s like everywhere you turn there’s country music, which is a beautiful thing. But I think for them it’s not as common and so people are locked in. Even the big shows, like I saw Lainey Wilson and Dylan Gossett, big headline shows in basically arenas, and when they stopped playing, you could hear a pin drop. People were listening to every word and I found that to be true even for my sets that were a lot smaller. People were listening, people were singing, people were locked in. I think it’s a really cool moment for country music to just be in this global takeover where everybody’s like, ‘oh, country’s kind of sick. Let’s listen to it.’ That’s a really cool spot to be in.
Did you get to meet Lainey Wilson?
I did…Again, one of those people that didn’t have to do this but she would stop by the dressing rooms of all of the festival openers, all the smaller acts like me. Where she would headline that night, instead of staying on her bus or staying in her dressing room, she would come down, she’d introduce herself, she’d say, ‘Hey, I’m Lainey.’ She would compliment the acts. She was fantastic. What little time I got to spend with her, she was super kind.
What are your goals for 2025?
I’m really competitive. And so as soon as we hit one goal, I’m just like, ‘alright, let’s build another one.’ We have some number goals. We would love to hit a million monthly listeners by Christmas. That would feel like the end of the year for a pretty good solid start. I wanted to play a hundred shows this year in 2025. I don’t know if we’ll hit a hundred. That’s a lot of shows, especially for me just starting out. But I mean, we’re doing pretty good. We’re busy. So that’s a couple of ’em. Then, I’d love to start doing some soft headline stuff probably later in the year. I really would like to see if people actually show up to these shows, because I’ve been opening and that’s been incredible but you never quite know. You can have a bunch of followers, you can have a bunch of streams, but at the end of the day, are people going to pay their hard-earned money to come see your show? I don’t know. We’ll figure that out.
Is there anything you’d like your fans to know right now?
I think we’ve got basically a plan right now where we’re just going to keep putting music out. The EP will drop, obviously we want that to go crazy, but I kind of want them to know, I was in the studio yesterday. I mean, we cut two more songs yesterday, so we’re not really going to slow down in putting music out because I think at this point, unless you’re a global superstar, your fans want music constantly. Luckily, I love making music and so we don’t have a shortage of songs. So I think for them, just knowing, no pun intended, we’re not planning on ‘slowing down’ after the EP comes out. My goal is just to keep feeding music out, and then just to keep building this thing and building an authentic fan base. Like I said, hopefully we sell some tickets in the fall and see what happens.
Fans can keep up with Zach John King on Instagram.
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