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How ‘Yellowstone’s Support of Zach Bryan Helped His Career

If you’ve followed along with Outsider for any amount of time, you’ll know that we’re passionate about a few things. Yellowstone and country music rank high on that list. Yellowstone tells a gripping and gritty story and does so with an excellent cast. They make things better by adding solid country music to their soundtrack. However, they don’t just pluck songs from the radio. Instead, they seek out up-and-coming artists to feature. Because, much like the Outsider team, the show’s music supervisor loves introducing their fans to new and lesser-known artists.  However, the show really went above and beyond for Zach Bryan.

Recently, Adrea von Foerster, Yellowstone’s music supervisor told Music Row all about how they pulled out all the stops to get Zach Bryan’s music on the show. First, she talked about how she discovered Bryan and several other artists she adds to the show’s soundtrack. “Obviously I have artists pitched to me from labels, publishers, managers, and agents,” she said. However, Foerster also does her own scouting by going down “massive Twitter and YouTube rabbit holes.”

Like many of Zach Bryan’s fans, that’s where she found him. She immediately knew he was right for Yellowstone and reached out. He was more than happy to be featured on the show. However, his first record, DeAnn sounded a little too lo-fi for television. Foerster had a solution for that, though.

She put Zach Bryan in touch with superstar producer Dave Cobb to cut two songs. In the end, Yellowstone featured Bryan’s song “Condemned” in the season 3 episode “Freight Trains and Monsters.”

How ‘Yellowstone’ Affected Zach Bryan’s Career

Zach Bryan recorded two songs with Dave Cobb – “Condemned” and “Hell or Highwater.” In February, he released those songs in a two-tack EP called Studio A Recordings. Those songs have garnered nearly four million combined streams on Spotify alone. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Yellowstone introduced Zach Bryan to a whole new audience. Before “Condemned” appeared on the show, he gained fans largely through his videos on social media. Additionally, those Dave Cobb-produced tracks elevated Bryan’s immense amount of raw talent to a new level. The cleaned-up production caught the ear of countless fans and steered them to the rest of Bryan’s catalog.

Now, Zach Bryan sells out shows wherever he goes. When he does, he brings up-and-comers with him to the stage, seemingly paying it forward after getting a boost from the hit show.

Recently, Zach Bryan received an honorable discharge from the US Navy. He posted about it on his social media and said that the Navy let him go to pursue his musical career. So, the boom in popularity he received from the exposure literally changed his life, not just his career.