Redoing a song for Riley Green’s sophomore album that had just been on his debut was “a decision the fans kind of made,” Green says.

The latest version of “Different ‘Round Here,” from 2023 LP “Ain’t My Last Rodeo,” also features guest vocals from Luke Combs, a star country singer/songwriter contemporary of Green’s. The original was the title track of Green’s 2019 full-length bow.

Although it’s been streamed more than 63 million times on Spotify, the original “Different ‘Round Here,” a Southern rock-hued hometown anthem cowritten with Randy Montana and Jonathan Singleton, had never been a single.

Another song from Green’s LP, pedal-steel-spangled heartbreaker “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” 127 million streams and counting, blew up so big “Different ‘Round Here,” Green says, “kind of got pushed back.”

Still, fans gravitated to the title track of Green’s gold-selling debut, which also boasted the hit “There Was This Girl” and production by Dan Huff, a pop/rock session guitar ace for stars like Madonna, Whitesnake and Bob Seger turned A-list Nashville hit-maker for Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, etc.

Whenever Green played “Different ‘Round Here” at his shows, “fans reacted to it like it was a hit song,” Green says, “So I wanted to kind of shed new light on it and give it a second chance.

“And it worked out really great because I was going on a stadium tour with Luke Combs. I just texted him and asked if he wanted to be part of it and it worked out great – for both of us. It’s become a big song all over again and it’s been great to see and hear it get played on the radio.”

Things have been working out great in general for Green, who won Academy of Country Music’s New Male Artist of the Year Award in 2020, an accolade Combs took home the previous year.

Currently, he’s out on a headlining tour with country icon Tracey Lawrence and up-and-comer (and fellow Alabama product) Ella Langley. On Friday, the tour comes to Von Braun Center Propst Arena in Huntsville, Alabama. Complete tour dates at rileygreenmusic.com.

On a recent early afternoon, Green checked in for a phone interview from the porch of his lakeside place in his hometown, Jacksonville, Alabama. Edited excerpts below.

Riley, on this tour you’re headlining arenas and amphitheaters. What’s your spin on the arena country music show like?

Riley Green: Well, it’s finding a happy middle-ground between those tear-jerking emotional songs, that I tend to write a lot of, but also songs that make you want to hold your drink up in the air. And that’s kind of what we do with our show. There’s a lot of high-energy, tempo moments, — songs like “There Was This Girl” and “Different ‘Round Here” — and then there’s also some moments where I come out and sit on a barstool to play – songs like “I Wish Grandpas Never Died” or “Hell Of A Way To Go.”

So it’s a lot of that. It’s trying to find a way to keep that audience engaged – I think that’s with any genre. That’s what your job onstage is, to entertain the people who paid to come see you.

Who’s an artist outside of country music you listen to a lot?

I listed to a lot of different types of music. I grew up in the era of burnt CDs, you know, so we had all kind of different genres of music together in one spot, and I guess that’s what streaming is now.

I was a huge classic rock fan growing up. Being from Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of those bands, and I think probably from a creative standpoint, listening to bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Marshall Tucker Band, stuff like that, musically you can get some ideas that were a little bit interesting to the country music world. Keep things from getting monotonous and sounding the same and the same three chords, you know.

There was a lot of musical creativity during that era, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, in classic rock that was probably more like country today.

Your recordings sound current and fresh, yet there’s also classic country instrumentation like fiddle and pedal steel. How do you find the right balance of roots and contemporary?

I think that’s the constant battle and probably the hardest part of my job I guess if you want to call it that, is finding a way to stay relevant and current to an ever-changing demographic and ever-changing musical tastes with a generation that’s … When I was playing in college bars at school, that was 10, 12 years ago.

So you still want to write about things that you know and kind of keep that kind of traditional sound in country music, the fiddle and the steel guitar and the dobro and the mandolin, but you also have to kind of change with the times a little bit too. So it’s a constant battle and a constant creative strain me and my producers have when we go in the studio.

You played quarterback at Jacksonville State University. If you were scouting Riley Green the football player back then, what’s his upside and what’s his downside?

Uh, I could always throw a football pretty well, so I’d say maybe my arm was my upside. But I think my biggest downside was trying to get my into a 7:45 [a.m.] class after staying out all night playing in the bars.

When you were coming up playing in the bars during college, what were a couple of the best gigs to play there? Was Brother’s [Bar] still a big place to play there then?

Brother’s was a good spot. There was a time period where everybody when through Brother’s. I mean, Hank Williams Jr., Marshall Tucker Band. Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ used to play there all the time when I was in school. It had become slightly less popular when I was in school, but I definitely played there.

I played the Mexican restaurant in town, LocoMex, about twice a week for several years. Heroes, the Smoking Moose down in Anniston, Chestnut Station in Gadsden, I played all of those for a long time. I don’t know if they were the best gigs you could have but for me, I was pretty happy to have ‘em.

What was the moment that flipped the switch for you of wanting to write music and not just play music?

It was very gradual for me. I can remember my Grandaddy Buford was a huge music guy – loved Roy Acuff, Merle Haggard and George Jones – and when I’d go over to their house me and him would sit around and play an old guitar that he had.

I don’t think I ever had any dreams of being a musician. I was really into sports growing up, played three sports in high school.

And I think it [the desire to be a songwriter] came from me playing cover band gigs and just getting tired of playing the same covers every night, so I started trying to write songs that I thought would do well.

And that was where I got a passion for songwriting. I think that probably even today trumps my passion for performing. I love writing songs and it’s never felt like work to me – it’s something that’s exciting.

For songwriting, do you have a particular guitar that you’ve pulled the most of songs out of?

Yeah, I’m kind of all over the place and I’ve got guitars strung out any place I might be staying, whether it’s the bus or Nashville or the beach or Jacksonville or … There’s a 1967 J-35 [Gibson acoustic] that I bought at a pawn shop five or six years ago, something about that old guitar, even how it smells that kind of reminds me of the old Epiphone my granddaddy had, it seems like you get a little bit of inspiration from that.

In April, you’re hosting your inaugural “Duckman Jam” a two-day country music festival at legendary beachside Pensacola, Florida hotspot Flora-Bama. The Flora-Bama has appeared in your song lyrics, too. What’s it like to have your own festival there now?

Man, I played down there every day on the beach under a tent from 12 to four for three weeks, during every college in the Southeast’s spring break. And I think those three weeks took 10 years of my life. [Laughs]

But I just cut my teeth down there. I learned so much about trying to win a crowd over, especially a tourist type crowd where new people are coming in every night. You really have to find a way to make yourself stand out.

And I just love that place, love that area, grew up going down there when I was a kid. So to be able to go and do two nights on the beach down there and invite some of my favorite artists to come open up the show, it’s awesome, man. It feels like a hometown show for me even though it’s five-and-a-half hours away from where I grew up.

When you first started experiencing real success in music, what’s the first major purchase you made.

Well, I built a house around 2017, but that was right before I signed a record deal, so I think I was able to afford that just because I did most of the work myself. I was still doing construction until about 2018 when I signed a deal.

But I think the most memorable purchase for me was buying my dad a truck. Nothing I bought myself stands out like as being able to hand him the keys to a nice truck, you know? He always had an old beat-up truck, so it was cool to be able to take care of him.

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