Yellowstone Caused A Bit Of Controversy On Country Music Twitter This Week After Zach Bryan Was Accused Of Stealing a Riff From a Song He Wrote Years Ago

Amy Harris. Shutterstock Images.

Breaking down some country music beef that has been going on because one of my favorite artists has been accused of stealing a riff from another artist that wrote a song like 10 years ago. 

It all started when Zach Bryan made an appearance on Yellowstone, which is an awesome show that has used Zach's music many times (I'm not gatekeeping but I listened to Zach way before Yellowstone and saw him go from youtube to mainstream success has been sick and You should all check out his stuff). But unfortunately, like many things, more exposure brings more controversy. 

So Zach's music gets played on the show, and out of nowhere, Rich O'Toole who I have never heard of, accuses Zach of stealing a riff from a song he wrote in 2014.

Unfortunately for Zach, a time that should have been spent enjoying his appearance on Yellowstone turned into a bunch of randos accusing the guy who has pumped out an insane amount of great music in the past 3 months of ripping another dudes song. 

While I'll admit there is a similar guitar play between Zach's song and Rich O'Tooles song, the angle of "It must be stolen" isn't necessarily warranted but maybe rather an "O man, we both spend hours of work with guitars for a living and stumbled upon the same good riff".

This video plays the other song, so you guys can compare the two. 

Advertisement

Rich O'Toole then reached out privately because everyone was shitting on him.

He reached out publicly. 

It was also very obvious that Rich O'Toole was trying to get streams on his old song that he thought ZB stole.

They have since squashed the beef. 

Advertisement

I mean, there's only a finite combo of notes and bars, and there technically is a finite number of music to be created. This occurrence of mistaken stealing is nowhere as close to what Kid Rock did on "All Summer Long," where he actually just ripped Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama.