“I was definitely the one that wanted it really bad.”
Zach Top was talking about Top String, the bluegrass band he started with his brother and sisters when he was 7. The memories that came next were not all sweet ones.
That little band is a long way behind him now. On Nov. 5, the Country Music Association named Zach one of the first performers for the 60th CMA Awards. The show airs next Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, with Lainey Wilson as host. Zach won New Artist of the Year there last fall. This year he is nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year, and his album “Ain’t In It for My Health” is up for Album of the Year. In February, that same album won the first Grammy ever given for Best Traditional Country Album.
If you only know him from the radio, Zach is the 29-year-old Washington state singer behind “I Never Lie” and “Sounds Like the Radio.” He grew up on a farm in Sunnyside, Wash.
“It was kind of a hobby farm. We had a bunch of goats and chickens and a handful of cows and some horses and stuff,” he told Fox News Digital in 2024. “My dad was in the livestock business, so he had a big commercial ranch and then ran the sale barn.”
The house was full, too. “I’ve got a younger brother and two older sisters,” he told SongwriterUniverse. “We had a little family band for 10 years growing up.”
Zach was the one doing the pushing. In a 2025 interview quoted by Whiskey Riff, he said he would play guitar three hours a day “and then try and get them to, you know, do a little band practice for whatever show we had coming up or something.” He admitted “we had some brutal band practices,” and he did not let himself off the hook. “I was definitely an unpleasant little tyrant a lot of times, I’ll say.”
There was a happy ending at home. “Luckily, I didn’t ruin any relationships with my siblings,” he said.
Billboard put Zach on a cover last year and filmed him talking about where he came from.
Zach talks about his roots in his Billboard cover interview
So how does a 7-year-old end up running a band? Zach told that story on “The Bobby Bones Show” in August 2025, and the show shared the details in its write-up.
It started with the family orthodontist. His name was Randy, and to Zach he was like a bonus grandparent. Randy and Zach’s dad were in the Rotary Club together. One day Randy called with a question. Would the Top kids open for a Patsy Cline musical at the high school?
Zach doesn’t fully remember the call. According to the show, he has been told that he said yes right away and promised they would learn a few songs in time. That first booking is what got Top String started.
The family band played around eastern Washington and drifted apart as the kids got older. By then Zach was hooked. He later won the 2017 International Bluegrass Band Championships with another group, then saved up and moved to Nashville.
Zach talked about the family band and how it led to everything else when he sat down with Bobby Bones.
Zach tells Bobby Bones how the family band shaped his career
Last November, Zach sang “Guitar” on the CMA Awards stage, and later that night he won New Artist of the Year.
Zach sings “Guitar” at the 2025 CMA Awards
Next Wednesday he gets that stage again, this time with two nominations and a Grammy behind him. The band’s first show was booked by a man who straightened teeth for a living, and a 7-year-old who said yes and promised to learn the songs later.