Veterans Day is next Wednesday, and Zach Bryan has a Navy story he wants people to hear. It isn’t about him. It’s about the man who was his boss.
“He’s the reason, man, he’s the reason I recorded any songs ever, at all,” Zach said.
He was talking about his friend Leo Alba. Zach said it during a long porch conversation with actor Matthew McConaughey, posted on Zach’s YouTube channel to go with his new EP, “Young Manhood & Other Donatable Organs.” Whiskey Riff reported the story on Nov 4.
If Zach is new to you, here is the short version. He was born in Japan, where his parents were stationed with the Navy. He enlisted in 2013 at 17 and served eight years, working his way up to Aviation Ordnanceman Second Class. That’s the sailor who handles the weapons loaded onto Navy aircraft. He was still in uniform when his songs started catching fire online.
Leo Alba was there for that. Whiskey Riff says he was Zach’s commanding officer at the time, and the two were active-duty sailors stationed in Jacksonville, Florida.
Zach told McConaughey he made his supervisors a simple promise back then. “I’ll always write music,” he said. “No matter what anyone says or anyone does, this is what I do.”
Then he explained how he thanks Alba today.
“And his kids call me their uncle,” Zach said. Alba “comes to shows all the time,” he added. Then came the big one: “I give him a percentage of every song that I release. Because that’s how much that meant to me.”
So what did Alba do?
Zach first told the story in 2019, when he was still serving. “My boss is an old producer, and he heard about me and my music blowing up, and he’s one of my best friends,” he told Saving Country Music. “He looked at me and said, ‘Hey, do you believe in these songs?'”
Alba wasn’t going to wait around for a record label to find his friend.
Here is how they did it. On their weekend liberty, the free time sailors get off base, Alba rented an Airbnb in Jacksonville. The friends bought recording gear at Guitar Center, took the pictures down and put old mattresses up against the walls to soak up the sound. According to Whiskey Riff, they recorded the whole album in 48 hours.
Zach almost didn’t go through with it. “I looked at my buddy and said, ‘Man, I don’t know if this will be worth it without a band and full tracks,'” he remembered. “My friends talked me into it, and I owe them that.”
That weekend became “DeAnn,” Zach’s first album. It came out on Aug 24, 2019. It is named for his mom, DeAnn, who passed away in 2016. Alba is listed as its producer, and Whiskey Riff says he later helped with Zach’s next record, “Elisabeth,” too.
“Him believing in me enough to do that for me,” Zach told McConaughey.
The full porch talk with McConaughey runs about two hours. Zach’s words about Alba are in there, so settle in with a cup of coffee.
Zach Bryan talks about Leo Alba on the porch with Matthew McConaughey
If you’d like to see Zach back when he was still a sailor, the Navy’s own outreach team filmed an interview with him in April 2021. It’s about eight minutes long, and he sings “Sweet DeAnn” after the talk.
Zach in his Navy days, interviewed by the Navy and singing “Sweet DeAnn”
Zach announced in October 2021 that he had been honorably discharged after eight years of service. Alba is out of the Navy now too. “He’s living well now, he got out of the Navy, he lives out in Texas and we see each other when we can,” Zach said.
Alba’s kids get an uncle who sings for a living. And every time Zach puts out a new song, a piece of it goes to the sailor who rented that house in Jacksonville.