Riley Green Is Relieved Jon Pardi Wont Be His First Tour Boss

Riley Green is glad his upcoming stint opening for Jon Pardi's Heartache Medication Tour won't be his first time ever on a major tour, but not because he and Pardi don't like each other -- in fact, quite the opposite.

"If somebody asked me who I admire, he would be one of them. I've always been a fan, and I think our crowds are pretty similar," Green admits. "I'm glad he wasn't my first tour, because I'm afraid me and him are going to get along too well!"

Not that the artist who actually did take Green out his first major tour was any less intimidating: The rising singer hit the road with Brad Paisley, along with fellow up-and-comer Chris Lane, as well. But Green's been pounding the pavement since long before he signed a record deal, and he says learning to be an opening act was a good challenge.

"I'd never gotten to go on a major tour, never gotten to open for anybody, so it was really a new thing," he muses. "I played a 25-minute set, and I'm used to playing four hours, acoustic, with no breaks. So it's a very different thing, to go and try to get in front of a crowd, especially a new crowd, and win 'em over in that amount of time. It was sort of a tough thing to get a feel for."

WATCH: Riley Green Goes Acoustic for "In Love By Now"

During this learning curve, Green adds, his single was rising up the charts. "You've got a song like "There Was This Girl," that just gets bigger and bigger every week, and you've got this crowd of 15,000 that's there to see somebody else, and who are singing my song ... The opportunity to get in front of Brad's fans and try to steal a few of them is kinda hard to beat."

Following a whirlwind year of touring with artists he admires, Green will embark on his own headlining Get That Man a Beer Tour in late 2019. Together with opening act Travis Denning, Green says he plans revisit some of his favorite areas he's played as a touring musician. After all, if this year's schedule is any indication, he might not have time to make it to those markets again very soon.

"That was my big thing, talking to my booking agents: I've been very fortunate to have had a touring career, as regional as it was being in the Southeast, and I just wanna retract and hit those markets again before the year's out. You never know what next year will bring," the singer points out.

"It's funny, when you play these big shows, you don't get to go play the bar next door or the county next door," Green adds. "You gotta kind of spread it out. So I'm glad I get to go back and hit some of those southeast markets again."

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Who Else Is Going on Tour in 2019?