If Zac Brown has learned anything from critics lately, it’s that irony has officially left the building.
“Some people just aren’t smart enough to deduce the meaning of the lyrics,” he says, talking about “God Given,” a Max Martin-assisted banger that ignited a minor digital bonfire. The song namechecks champagne glasses, Botox lips, and shopping bags—but it’s not endorsement, it’s satire. “I’m absolutely making fun of those things,” Brown insists. “They think they’re hot, but they’re not. They want what she’s got.”
The “she” in question is the kind of woman Brown actually admires: someone unbothered, self-assured, and uninterested in designer worship. Then came the backlash. “It gets me fired up,” he says. “But generally, the people who sit around writing reviews aren’t my kind of people anyway.”
It’s all part of the larger statement Brown makes with The Owl, a Zac Brown Band album, and Controversy, his solo “pop” record, both released in the same breath. “If I don’t get these songs out, I’ll sit on them too long,” he says. “Then I’ll write new ones and not like the old ones as much.” Hence: two albums, zero apologies.
Collaborators on Controversy include Skrillex and Max Martin—names that would send country radio programmers into cardiac arrest. Brown, though, isn’t worried about genre lines. “Explain to me how the White Album is cohesive,” he says, invoking The Beatles as a spiritual blueprint. “It’s absolutely not. And it’s brilliant.”
He compares his creative brain to an art gallery full of styles. “There’s all kinds of crazy art in there,” he says. “You don’t have to like every piece. Walk on by. But don’t be angry that I’m exploring corners of the world you’re not comfortable with.”
“The purists, the traditionalists… they’re always loud,” he continues. “But we’ve earned the right to be here. We didn’t just show up and get lucky.” He’s not wrong—ten years of bar gigs before their first radio hit. “I don’t know a band that’s paid more dues than we have.”
The Owl gets its name from a folder on Brown’s computer. “It just came to me,” he says. “Owls are otherworldly. They appear when something’s going on in the universe.” Like, for instance, when a literal owl flew over the audience and landed in a tree at the exact second The Owl dropped at midnight. “That’s weird,” Brown says. “That’s something.”
The album also includes a cover of The Wood Brothers’ “Shoofly Pie,” a nod to Brown’s warm-up ritual and respect for songwriter Oliver Wood. “Oliver is one of the greatest songwriters alive,” he gushes. “We needed a fun, uptempo song, and that one just made sense.”
And then there’s Brandi Carlile, who lends her voice to the track “Finish What We Started.” “She showed up, nailed it in two takes,” Brown recalls. “She’s amazing. That’s the level of quality I wish the whole industry pushed. The real ones—the Brandis, the Stapletons—sometimes they don’t get the political seat at the table. But they should.”
As for Controversy, the solo record still gets love, even if it didn’t grab headlines like its bandmate. “That song ‘This Far’—I’m really proud of that one,” Brown says. And he teases more genre-bending to come, but in smaller doses. “We’re just gonna put out little batches now,” he says. “There’ll be rock songs, romance songs… whatever we’re feeling.”
He knows not everyone’s going to like it. And honestly? That’s part of the fun. “If people stop criticizing,” Brown says, “then maybe there’s nothing left to talk about.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
