Rising country star Zach Bryan isn't from Austin, but he's happy to be here for ACL Fest

Let's clarify one detail right up front: Though he closed his set Friday at the Austin City Limits Music Festival with a song called "From Austin," Zach Bryan is not from Austin. Born in Japan to a Navy family, Bryan grew up in Oklahoma and eventually joined the Navy himself, writing songs in his spare time.

He grew his audience enough on two independent releases to attract Warner Records, which released his 34-song (!) major-label debut, "American Heartbreak," earlier this year. Buoyed by the top-25 pop single "Something in the Orange" — one of several songs in Friday's set that got fans singing along — "American Heartbreak" topped Billboard's country, rock and folk charts.

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Though he's not from Austin, he seemed happy to be here, judging from his shoutouts to the city in almost every song. Backed by a solid seven-piece band anchored by standout fiddler Lucas Ruge-Jones, Bryan played a well-received 40-minute set (20 minutes less than his scheduled slot) to a sizable midafternoon crowd on the festival's first day.

Is Bryan a one-trick pony? It's probably too early in his career to tell. Though he and his band have a good sound and style, it starts to feel quite familiar after a while: Most songs begin with a fiddle solo, and almost all are in minor keys that accentuate Bryan's penchant for songs steeped in emotional angst.

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"Revival," an anthemic number from Bryan's 2020 album, "Elisabeth," offered his band members a chance to stretch out as he introduced them all and gave them solo spotlights. A couple of them sported cowboy hats and others wore baseball caps, placing his band's fashion sense somewhere between old-school and new-school country.

Bryan wisely wore no hat at all, which seemed fitting for an artist whose songwriting reaches beyond the Nashville machine. He also played Stubb's on Wednesday but won't be back for the festival's second weekend. Don't be surprised, though, to see him pop up on the "Austin City Limits" TV show sometime soon; his music is a good bridge between the program's historical base and its modern embrace of younger artists.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: ACL Music Fest 2022: Zach Bryan happy to be in Austin