Zac Brown was asked to address the state of country music in a recent interview, and his answer was pretty surprising - especially for a current country music star. Not only did Zac put down his friend Luke Bryan's new single, but the 'Chicken Fried' singer vented about country music songwriting as a whole.

Brown was asked in a recent radio interview how he deals with those who criticize modern country music as being "pop" or "southern rock". More specifically, Zac was asked if he agrees with the comments Tom Petty made, calling modern country "bad rock with a fiddle". In a radio interview with JRFM-Vancouver, he responded:

"I guess I am one of those critics in a certain way, because there's not a lot of the country format that I enjoy listening to...I haven't heard [Petty's] comments, but I definitely have some of my own. What we do is not necessarily 'traditional country', but we play all of our own instruments and write the best songs that we can. We put harmony on the songs."

Brown goes on to specifically address his songwriting and compare it to a lot of the country music he shares air time with:

"A lot of it's just about subject matter. We really write about real life, songs that come from life and from our hearts. For me country music's always been the home for a song. For a great song. If I hear one more 'tailgate in the moonlight', you know, 'daisy dukes' you know, song, I wanna throw up. There are songs out there on the radio right now that make me ashamed to be even in the same format as some other artists."

These are surprisingly strong words from a guy that shares a lot of the same fans as most of the artists you hear on country radio. And while Brown continued to give his honest opinion, even calling out his friend Luke Bryan:

Now, there are still great artists that are in the country format. And there are still artists that do a great job with a song and that care about their lyrics...I love Luke Bryan and he's had some great songs. But this song is the worst song I've ever heard. I know Luke. He's a friend. 'My Kinda Night' is one of the worst songs I've ever heard...country fans and country listeners deserve to have something better than that. I'm opinionated because I care so much about the music and the songs.

It remains to be seen whether Luke still considers Zac to be a friend after these comments, or if this is just the beginning of a drawn out battle of words between the two country stars.

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