Riley Green could have had an early career boost, opening for Travis Tritt, but lost out on the opportunity, for one surprising reason. Green reveals that he was actually being considered as an opener for the country music icon, but missed the opportunity due to his lack of social media presence.
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Green details the painful lesson while speaking on The Pat McAfee Show.
"I had a buddy that worked with Sam Hunt call me, because he knew I did music," Green recalls (via Taste of Country). "And he said, 'Man, we got an offer to go open for Travis Tritt. We can't do it. I'm gonna put your name in the hat.'"
Green's excitement quickly turned to disappointment, when he realized he didn't get the gig.
"He called me back and said, 'Man, you don't have enough followers on Facebook,'" Green remembers.
Green, who now has upwards of 750,000 Facebook followers, learned that lesson the hard way.
"I was like, 'I don't even really have Facebook. What's that got to do with anything?'" Green remembers. "Then I realized social media was a big part of it, and all that stuff. So I got all that."
How Riley Green Got His Start In Country Music
Green calls his success in country music "very accidental," and he isn't wrong. Green was actually working in construction, and performing around his native Alabama on weekends for a little extra cash.
"I was playing a Mexican restaurant in Jacksonville, Alabama every week for about $150 a night," Johnson recalls on Southern Living's Biscuits & Jam podcast (via Country Now). "And there would be 50, 60 people in there. I did that for about eight years."
One night, Green was invited to play at Iron City, a venue about 70 miles from his home. It unintentionally changed everything for him.
"I said, 'Man, that place holds 1,300 people. It'll be empty, you know?'" the "Don't Mind If I Do" singer recalls. "And finally, he talked me into coming down there, and I think it was 1,260 people showed up. I had no clue anybody knew who I was in Birmingham. So it was kind of an eye-opening moment that I might have a chance to have a career in music, you know? 'Cause I was just doing it on the weekends, when I wasn't framing houses, as a hobby."
