Zach Bryan tells Springsteen he doesn't want to be a “country musician.”

Last year, Zach Bryan saw two of his songs spend weeks at the top billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, including the 20-week chart-topper “I Remember Everything” featuring Kacey Musgraves and the six-week No. 1 “Something in the Orange” (which also reached the Top 20 on the Country Airplay chart). He also won his first Grammy earlier this year for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for the Musgraves collaboration.

But during a recent interview with one of his musical heroes, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen, Bryan talked about why he doesn't want to be considered a “country musician.”

“Everyone calls me that,” Bryan said as part of Springsteen Rolling Stoneis the series “Musicians about musicians”. “I want to be a songwriter, and you are a songwriter through and through. Nobody calls Bruce Springsteen – I hate using your name in front of you – but nobody calls Bruce Springsteen a fucking rock musician, which you're a part of, but you're also an indie musician, you're also a country musician. You are all these things combined in one man. And that’s what songwriting is.”

Springsteen said that Bryan was “connected to the country genre,” but also noted that after attending one of Bryan's shows, he “saw so much – and I don't want to call it rock – just energy in your performance.” You breaking all these different genre boundaries.”

“That's why you're a hero to me, because no one has ever come up to you and said you're on any trail,” Bryan replied. “When I started making music, I said to Stefan and Danny, my managers, 'I want to be in a position where people can look back and listen to my music and it's absolutely everything.' You did.' You were the only person in my head who ever did that.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bryan discussed his own battle with imposter syndrome. Springsteen asked Bryan when he first considered himself a “serious songwriter.”

“I still don’t!” Bryan replied, “To this day I have really bad imposter syndrome. But I had a lot of friends in the Navy, and we'd go out to the bars and we'd always have these times, and I'd go back to my barracks room and sing about it. I never had anything else to express myself. You work so much that you never really have time to talk about these things. So I went home and wrote, and I never in a million years thought I would ever be a songwriter because I never thought I had the talent. And that's not a humble thing, I just never in a million years thought I'd be sitting here with you. Because we would hear your songs and they are beautiful, poetic and brilliant. When I play (my songs), I think, 'There's no way people would enjoy these the way they would enjoy a Dylan song or a Springsteen song or something like that.'”

Springsteen also spoke openly about his own feelings about songwriting, saying, “Songwriting is hard. And I think I didn't really feel comfortable with the idea of ​​writing good songs until I was about 22 or 23, when I came up with the songs for my first record, a record called Greetings from Asbury Park, NJwhich came out in 1973.”

Springsteen also praised some of Bryan's songs, particularly “Revival” and “Open the Gate,” noting that they are “songs you'll sing until you're my age.”

Springsteen released his latest album, Only the strong survivein 2022, while Bryan released his latest project, The great American bar scenein July.