The Covid-19 pandemic has affected almost everything in 2020, including the ACM Awards, which were rescheduled from April in Las Vegas to this week in Nashville, which is the first time the show has ever been held in Vegas. The show will take place in three iconic venues around Nashville – The Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman Auditorium and The Bluebird Café, and there will be no audience. For Riley Green, who has already been announced as the ACM New Make Artist of the Year, winning that award this year is a little bittersweet. Of course, he is thrilled and extremely grateful for the recognition because he says, “I never thought I would win. Being nominated was enough of an accomplishment for me. But when you start thinking, ‘Man, like what if I won that? You start to imagine going on stage, obviously in Vegas, and rubbin’ elbows with these famous people you’re fans of, and gettin’ to go up and give a speech and playin’ a performance in front of them. And now that’s kind of taken away, in the sense of we’re not doing this awards show the way we have in the past.”
Now, Riley admits he doesn’t know what to expect on Wednesday night, in terms of how the show is going to flow, how acceptance speeches will be handled, if there will even be acceptance speeches. Regardless, he says, “It’s gonna be great and the honor is one of those things nobody can ever take away, you know what I mean? If nobody ever listened to another Riley Green song, I got that one plaque, it’ll be somewhere in my house.”
And even though it won’t be on the big stage in Las Vegas in front of all of his famous peers, Riley will still get to perform on this year’s ACM Awards, and that’s one of the big reasons he was excited to win New Male Artist. “I wanted to be able to play a song of mine on that stage,” says Riley, “cause a lot of people don’t know who I am. As a new artist it’s tough. It’s hard to kinda get your name out there so, it’s a great opportunity for me and I’m really lookin’ forward to that performance, especially, and kinda seein’ what comes from that.”
Not only is Riley celebrating his ACM Awards win this week, he’s also celebrating the release of his new EP, If It Wasn’t for Trucks, which was just released on Friday. You can see his performance on the ACM Awards Wednesday night on CBS.
Riley Green – ACM nom and performance :55
“If there’s a bittersweet thing to win New Male Artist of the Year is, the last two years being nominated, you start to go, I never thought I would win. Being nominated was enough of an accomplishment for me. But when you start thinking, ‘Man, like what if I won that? You start to imagine going on stage, obviously in Vegas, and rubbin’ elbows with these famous people you’re fans of, and gettin’ to go up and give a speech and playin’ a performance in front of them. And now that’s kind of taken away, in the sense of we’re not doing this awards show the way we have in the past. And so for me it was a little tough because I don’t really know what to imagine. I don’t know what it’s gonna be like. It’s gonna be great and the honor is one of those things nobody can ever take away, you know what I mean? If nobody ever listened to another Riley Green song, I got that one plaque, it’ll be somewhere in my house. For me, the biggest benefit to it was the performance. I wanted to be able to play a song of mine on that stage, cause a lot of people don’t know who I am. As a new artist it’s tough. It’s hard to kinda get your name out there so, it’s a great opportunity for me and I’m really lookin’ forward to that performance especially, and kinda seein’ what comes from that.”