Green started playing guitar when he was 10-years-old.
Courtesy | Isaac Green
Isaac Green ’25 is taking his music career beyond Concert on the Quad while he lives in Hillsdale, performing gigs every month and working on creating his first EP with record producer Tyler Neil Johnson.
“My hope is to release a few singles in May, and then release an EP eventually,” Green said.
Green commutes to Lansing three to four days a week working for the state House of Representatives. When he’s not working he continues to write music and polish his songs in the studio. Green said he’s excited to now be working with one of the best music producers in the industry and ready to create professional music that’s fully himself.
“It is truly an expression of where I’m at right now, and I’m excited to keep working on more projects, whether it be with the producer in Toronto, or anybody else who I get the opportunity to work with,” Green said.
Green’s housemates, Lost Mary band members Luke Martin and David “DJ” Johnson ’17, said they see a bright future for Green’s music, and connected him with their producer in Toronto.
“I went to Toronto over Halloween last year to record three songs with him,” Green said. “Then I was just there last weekend again to record more and do some patchwork over the previous three songs that we’ve recorded.”
Green started learning how to play the guitar when he was 10 years old and took sporadic lessons throughout high school. He then began to play the guitar and sing more seriously during his time at Hillsdale College, where he worked as an editor for The Collegian, and self-produced his first song “Gone Out.”
While considering going to law school Green has been working on finding the right outlet for his music. He finally found himself in the right place, at the right time, Martin said.
“If you’re trying to pursue music it gets rocky, and it gets boring, and it takes a lot of money and energy,” Martin said. “I know Isaac’s conflicted with that. But I think he’s finally leaning into pursuing his music, and I think he should. He has it, he should do it.”
Martin said Green has a good intuition and ear, and that’s evident in his song “Gone Out,” which he released last year. But with the help of a producer, Martin said, Green will be pushed to be great.
“Recording with a professional producer can change things up,” Martin said. “Before it was just him in his room with the microphone and his computer, and he’d stop himself to be a perfectionist. But when he goes to record with the producer, the producer says, ‘let’s do it,’ and he just has to start playing through it. He will just start going for it.”
The journey of writing, playing gigs, and working with a producer for the first time has been rewarding, he said.
“This last year has been so different from what I expected it to be in a lot of ways,” Green said. “But so beautiful in so many ways I never anticipated.”
In the last year, Green has written roughly 12 songs that he’s considered to record, five of which will show up on his EP. He said although he wrote on topics such as travel, planning, and peace in the waiting, the songs his producer advised to put on the EP are all in the category of relationships.
“I have written a lot about relationships,” Green said with a laugh. “So it all turned out to be songs about relationships on the EP, not by intent.”
According to Green, he is regularly working on a song, but during his first production process he hasn’t had as much time to be inspired and write.
“I didn’t really write anything seriously probably for a couple of months, and now I’m getting back into it,” Green said. “Otherwise, I would say I feel like I’m writing 75% of the time. I’m generally in a season of life where I’m sitting in my house playing my guitar all the time, and usually working on ideas.”
In both songwriting and production, Green takes inspiration from artists such as Tyler Childers, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Jim Croce. Green said the country folk genre is his favorite for its poetic melody and verse.
“It’s simple — but that’s the point of that genre,” Green said. “In a lot of ways it’s supposed to connect you on a very personal level, and it’s something that you don’t need to be a musical prodigy to appreciate the musical aspect of it. It’s just lyrics that are down to earth and really beautiful.”
Green’s writing process begins on the guitar before it appears on paper.
“Usually I start with an idea that I’m fiddling around with on the guitar,” Green said. “And usually that idea will be inspired by what I’m thinking about mentally. But I don’t have any words to start off with.”
According to Jack Cote ’25, who helped Green with his cover art and social media content, Green’s songwriting gets better with every new recording.
“He’s the best songwriter I’ve ever met,” Cote said. “He bridges the gap between telling stories about his personal life and writing about universal feelings and experiences.”
DJ Johnson said Green is not only a great songwriter, but a great composer.
“He’s very dialed into the sound of his voice,” DJ Johnson said. “However he plays the guitar, whether he’s playing too hard or too soft he’s very dialed into that. He’s a great songwriter, but this makes it so he’s also like a composer. He thinks about how his voice is fitting in with the guitar.”
From the way Green writes his music to the way he plays it, he is honest and methodical, Martin said.
“I think he’s a thoughtful lyricist,” Martin said. “You can tell it’s not just words on a page. There is a lot of thought that goes into it. It’s reflective in many ways.”
Green plans to continue writing music, and he looks forward to the release of his first EP. According to Martin, Green’s success will come from his skill and style.
“He is a super humble, talented guy, and I have high hopes that he’ll succeed very well,” Martin said. “I can see within two years him having millions of streams. Hell, I could see him playing with Zac Bryan in five years time. He has the talent. And he has the intelligence.”
