The past year has brought accolades Zach Top’s way — the newcomer won an ACM Award for new male artist and his Cold Beer & Country Music album was the first debut set to be nominated for an ACM Award for album of the year since 2016. He also landed his all-genre Billboard Hot 100 debut with “I Never Lie.”
But as Top prepares to release his new album Ain’t in It for My Health, out Friday (Aug. 29) on Leo33, he’s approaching it like a seasoned pro, as he continues making music that’s richly layered in the best tradition of ‘80s and ‘90s country artists such as Alan Jackson and Keith Whitley, but with a fresh spin.
“You always have in the back of your mind the age-old tale of the sophomore slump,” he tells Billboard. “I wouldn’t say there were no nerves, but not a ton. When I put out that first record, I wasn’t doing anything that I didn’t love and that I didn’t think was entirely me. When I put that out and people loved it as much as they did, it was kind of a sigh of relief. It’s like, ‘Oh, well s—t,’ I can keep doing that. That’s just me.”
When it came time to record his new album, Top was prepared. Ten of the album’s 15 songs were written prior to the release of his debut album.
“A lot of stuff was stacked up already, so we had a little bit of a blueprint for it already going, then we went in and recorded five more songs at the beginning of the year to round out the project,” Top says.
Ain’t in It for My Health‘s debut single, the Jimmy Buffett-esque “Good Times and Tan Lines,” is currently at No. 20 on the Country Airplay chart. He’s followed the summery hit with newly-released, stone-cold ballad “South of Sanity.”
The sophomore country set reunites him with producer-writer Carson Chamberlain, who also worked on Cold Beer & Country Music. Chamberlain is a former bandleader for Whitley and a songwriter who penned hits for George Strait and Jackson. Several writers and musicians on the new album are known for crafting or recording on projects for some of most revered artists of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Beyond Chamberlain, those who contributed to the album include guitarist Brent Mason (Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Randy Travis), multi-instrumentalist Andy Leftwich (Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Dailey & Vincent), drummer Tommy Harden (Skaggs, Jackson, Reba), bassist Jimmy Carter (George Jones, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw), and songwriters Paul Overstreet (“Diggin’ Up Bones,” “On The Other Hand”), Tim Nichols (“Live Like You Were Dying,” “Brotherly Love”) and Mark Nesler (“Just to See You Smile”).
“When they had no promise of a return, they invested a lot of time into writing songs, spending time writing with me and appreciated what I was doing enough to want to add their talent and craft to it,” Top says. “So, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It went pretty good on the first record, let’s go back to the well and see if we can do it a second time around.”
The album also features plenty of fleet-fingered acoustic guitar work from Top himself, who played more guitar on this album than his previous one. His bluegrass roots also shine throughout the project.
Like such country forebears as Whitley, Skaggs, Vince Gill and Chris Stapleton, the Sunnyside, Washington native started out playing bluegrass, even as he was enamored early on with the music of Strait and Whitley. Top and his siblings formed the bluegrass group Top String, and after briefly enrolling in an engineering program at the University of Colorado Boulder, Top continued playing in various bluegrass groups, while also crafting country songs. Top began posting videos of his music and cover songs on social media. In 2018, he caught Chamberlain’s attention. The two began working together, with Top making regular trips to Nashville, before relocating to Music City in 2021.
Top issued his self-released bluegrass album in 2022 (his recent country popularity sent that project back onto Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums chart, where it still resides in the top 10). In 2023, he signed with Leo33, becoming the independent label’s flagship artist. His country radio debut, “Sounds Like The Radio,” reached the top 15 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, but was bested by “I Never Lie,” which peaked at No. 2.
Much of Ain’t In It For My Health leans into summer anthems such as the lead single, and honky-tonk fare like “Country Boy Blues,” and “Honky Tonk ‘Til It Hurts,” while he proves his cool way with a ballad on the romantic “I Know A Place” and the devastating “South of Sanity.” There’s room for humor, too. The cheeky, beach-themed “Flip-Flop,” written with Chamberlain and Overstreet, came together after Overstreet arrived late to the writing session, wearing the titular beach footwear.
“Yeah, this song ain’t going to change the world, but who knows, it might change somebody’s tax bracket,” Top jokes. “You write something kind of funny and it’s easy to get too far over the top and turn it a little too cornball, but I think this one tows the line nicely.”
The album’s title comes from a line in the opening track “Guitar,” an ode to Top’s love and devotion to making music, while also serving as a career declaration.
“That whole chorus of ‘Ain’t in it for the money/ If it was I’d do somethin’ else/ Ain’t in it for the fame’ —it’s a light-hearted song, but for me it’s like, ‘Hey, this wasn’t a one-hit wonder. I’m around here to stay.’”
While Top has remained steadfast in the studio, the stage has been a launching pad. Earlier this year, he opened shows for Country Music Hall of Famer Jackson, and he’s currently supporting Bentley’s Broken Branches Tour. Meanwhile, he’s added shows to his own headlining Cold Beer & Country Music Tour, scaling up to headlining arenas. He’ll also play two shows at coveted outdoor venue Red Rocks.
“The tour has been a blast,” Top says of playing with Bentley. “It’s cool to have a resource like that, a guy that I admire the way that he does stuff, the way that he’s just professionally run his career. You can’t find somebody that has something bad to say about Dierks. He treats everybody really well. And then, he puts a lot of effort into being a family man while also being on the road and doing this thing that he loves, too.”
Bentley even invited Top to partake in what has become a ritual of sorts on the road: taking an ice plunge. “He’s a big time cut up, a jokester, which I tend to be as well,” Top says. “It was the first time I’d ever done one and I guess that was kind of part of my initiation into the tour, so I think I passed the test. I would do it again.”
Onstage, Top’s laid-back delivery, guitar prowess, neo-traditional sound, and his image all evoke one of country’s golden eras, even down to his black hat, denim shirts and jeans, which are a throwback to artists such as Strait and Garth Brooks. Fans have also noticed Top sometimes has another accessory on stage: singing and playing while puffing away on a cigarette.
“I’d imagine it might end up starting to affect me,” he says of the habit. “I’m not ignorant to all of the data we have on smoking at this point either, so I don’t smoke as much as I did a year ago. And I kind of enjoy it. I like what it does [vocally], it kind of puts a little edge on my lower end that I kind of enjoy. I won’t smoke forever, I don’t imagine.”
With success and fame come not only bigger stages, but some adjustments.
“I used to be writing a few days a week, and now, it’s like once every few months I’ll get to write with one of those guys, or get to even just see ‘em,” Top says of working with the writers on the album. “So definitely a different time, but they’ve been there from the beginning of it.”
He’s also had to navigate handling social media and opinions from online commentators. But Top takes a pragmatic approach to those stressors.
“Seeing what people are having to say, most of it’s a lot of praise and a lot of good things, and then some nasty things too,” he says. “And none of it means that much — because at the end of the day, none of those people really know you. They know the portion of me that I choose to share with them, which is my professional life and my career. And outside of that, I keep the rest of my life fairly private on purpose. I think the best way to handle it is to not put too much stock into what anybody on there has to say, unless you actually met ’em and you actually know them.”
Earlier this year, Top also circled back to his bluegrass roots by releasing a three-song EP with Billy Strings, Me & Billy, and he says that won’t be their last collab.
“I’m a huge fan of his and it’s fun that we’ve gotten to be buddies too, outside of just appreciating what each one of us does professionally,” Top says. “He’s a super-inspiring person, super nice guy. I’ll say you can bet on seeing some more from us in the future. Exactly what it’ll be or when it’ll be, I don’t know, but we’ll do something again in the future.”
For the immediate future, he’s on the road, but he’s already looking toward his next album.
“We’ve already got some [songs] stacked away and I’m going to have a couple of months off from shows at the end of this year. where I’m going to do a bunch of writing again,” he says. “I wrote one song in 2024, and I’ve written a couple this year, but it’s not much. I’m looking forward to setting aside some time to write.”
As one of the fastest-rising artists in country music, with his new album poised to bring him to even greater acclaim, Top is grateful for every moment along the way.
“I don’t take it for granted,” he says. “I’m very thankful for everything. It’s going about as well as I could have ever hoped it would go.”
