“It’s Not A ’90s Gimmick Thing… This Is All I Know” – Zach Top On Being Compared To Great ’90s Country Artists

If it concerns ’90s country, Zach Top is all over it.

Zach Top is viewed as a modern-day country artist stuck in a ’90s star’s body. His music transports listeners back in time, and many have dubbed him the artist who will revive the classic country sound. Top has openly admitted that he is a massive fan of country music from that era, along with the ’80s, which heavily influences his sound.

In a Wrangler Western interview, Top even recalls walking into his first guitar lesson and telling his instructor the first song he wanted to learn was “Amarillo By Morning.”

“I said ‘Amarillo By Morning,’ without hesitation. She was a little appalled by that, I think.”

From the start of his career, the songs that defined the genre have been pulsing through his blood. Although he started performing bluegrass music with his family band, performing at local venues and festivals, he always returned to the tried and true sound of country music.

But Top made it very clear in the interview that while he is heavily influenced and a mega fan of ’90s country music, he is not trying to recreate what was once done.

“I think that maybe part of the reason people like my music so much is that it’s not a… it’s not like a ’90s gimmick thing. I’m not trying to… this is all I know how to do. It’s not like I made the choice that I’m going to be a ’90s throwback guy. It’s like I grew up listening and learning from the same guys that all those ’90s guys would have been influenced by. So it comes from just as genuine of a place as those guys did the first time they came around.

And obviously, as you said (referring to an earlier statement host Wacey Anderson made), for a lot of us, it is reminiscent—kind of like, ‘I’ve heard this before.’ So it feels comfortable, it feels like an old boot.

And then younger kids- they’re getting introduced to it for the first time, which is crazy. It’s fun to see how many little high school-aged, college-aged, whatever it is… I call them kids; I’m not that old. But, you know they’re turned on by country music.”

Top notes how fun it is to look out in the crowd and see the vast array of fans who attend his concert. From the young to the old, his music resonates with multiple generations. Undoubtedly, Top is the artist who bridges old country lovers with new ones.

While the whole interview is well worth listening to, toward the end of their time together, Wacey Anderson hit Top with a collection of 90s-related questions. One of the standout questions tested Zach Top’s knowledge of hit songs from the decade, and he made a game called Country Song Title or AI.

Top entered the game feeling very confident, noting:

“If there’s a ’90s country title, I probably know it.”

And he was not playing. While some titles, like “Fence Post Confession,” were dead giveaways that it was AI, there were some tricky ones, like “Whiskey On My Mind,” which made Top pause to sort through his catalog of song titles. Top, though, passed with flying colors, sniffing out the phony song titles.

The whole interview is well worth a listen. Zach Top is going places, and hearing the passion behind each sentence, he speaks shows how dedicated he is to his craft.