Zac Brown Band Talks New Tour & Creating Their Recent Sphere Residency: ‘You Learn Your Limits’

The Zac Brown Band‘s eight-show residency during December and January at Sphere in Las Vegas was the group’s most conceptually ambitious to date, a visually rich and personal, often autobiographical treatise over the course of more than two dozen songs.

You had to be there to see it, of course, but Brown says the ZBB’s upcoming Love & Fear Tour — which begins July 17 in Grand Rapids, Mich. — will bring a taste of that production to fans around the country.
“We had to put together something that would be interesting if somebody did come see us at Sphere but also give a little taste for the people that didn’t,” Brown tells Billboard via phone from his getaway home in Alaska. “There’s some of the beautiful stuff that we want to share, with narration and the story that kind of threads through; I told so much of my personal story, of when I was a kid and my life and the things that happened along that way that drove me toward music. But we also need a fresh show for everybody.

“We don’t have four acres of video to use out there, so we definitely borrowed some of the visual elements, scaled down to what they can be in an arena or in a shed or baseball stadium or wherever. So, quality, memories — we want people to be able to come and make amazing memories with their people and remember being there so they have a little something to put in their pocket for later in the year. I know it’s a weird market right now, with the economy and everything the way that it is, but we put a lot of work and love into trying to bring a little relief to the people who are out there.”

Looking back on the Sphere run — which made the ZBB only the second country act and first country band to play at the venue — Brown recalls “a mountain of work,” not only in conceptualizing the shows but also tying it in with the Love & Fear album, which came out on Dec. 5, in conjunction with the first Sphere show. “Honestly, I’m still a little bit burnt out from the two years of making that entire album, making all the visuals for (Sphere), making all the stages and costumes — everything that it took to pull that off,” acknowledges Brown, who was the sole producer, for the first time ever, on the Love & Fear album. “It’s so far beyond anything I’ve done, work-wise…but it’s like, ‘This is the moment. We’re going for it. We’re gonna shoot for the moon,’ but it requires so much work. I don’t think the general public person can tell how much work went into making one night of someone coming to see a show.”

He “can’t really say” whether ZBB will have a return engagement at Sphere but says that the effort of the production “is worth it. You learn your limits. You learn what you’re good at. You learn what help you need. It’s a worthy cause; I was trying to give the fans something they could never dream they would want, and I feel like we did that — with this album, too.”

Brown is hoping that the upcoming tour — which runs into November and includes an Aug. 2 date at Fenway Park in Boston — will put a little jet fuel behind the independently released Love & Fear, the ZBB’s first studio set not to appear on the country charts since its 2005 debut Home Grown. (It did reach No. 28 on the Top Current Album Sales survey.) The 13-song set includes guest appearances by Dolly Parton, Snoop Dogg and Marcus King, as well as songwriting collaborations with Dave Grohl, Tenille Townes, Lukas Nelson, the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr, Needtobreathe’s Bear Rinehart and others.

“I’m really proud of this album,” says Brown. “I feel like this is one of the most complete albums that we’ve written. It requires a listen-through a couple of times to really get it and dial it in…and it’s hard to get people to listen to a whole album these days. There’s so much competition for attention. You’re not just competing with other musicians; you’re competing with attention span that’s getting sucked up by all these apps and other things. That’s different than when we first got started. The machines that we had around back then (and) radio being such a power…. Now with everything switching over to streaming and everything, the overall amount of distractions is crazy right now.”

After the tour, Brown will be part of Margaritaville at Sea’s Same Boat, an artist-curated venue that launches during January on the new Beachcomber ship, for which he picked performers and designed performance spaces. But, he says, nothing else is in motion beyond that.

“Honestly, I’m gonna need a little break after this year,” he says. “It’s the first time in a long time I’m not actively chasing songs — chasing writing them, chasing working on things. Maybe that can start to happen a little more organically once we’re out on the road, but we’ll see. Really, a ZBB album is usually every two and a half to three years. We’re blessed to be able to do what we want to do and play the music we want to play, and we don’t have a machine or anyone who tells us, ‘You can’t do that.’ We just try to write the kind of music we want to hear and what we’re interested in. That’s what we’ve always done.”

The Zac Brown Band`s Love & Fear Tour dates include:
Friday, July 17, 2026 – Grand Rapids, MI - Van Andel Arena - %
Saturday, July 18, 2026 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Arena - %
Friday, July 31, 2026 – Albany, NY – MVP Arena - #
Sunday, August 2, 2026 – Boston, MA – Fenway Park - #
Thursday, August 13, 2026 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena - #
Friday, August 14, 2026 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena - #
Saturday, August 15, 2026 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion - #
Thursday, August 27, 2026 – Forest Hills, NY – Forest Hills Stadium - *
Friday, August 28, 2026 – Forest Hills, NY – Forest Hills Stadium - *
Saturday, August 29, 2026 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at Highmark Mann – *
Thursday, September 10, 2026 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center - ^
Friday, September 11, 2026 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise Center - ^
Thursday, September 17, 2026 – Charleston, SC – Credit One Stadium - ^
Friday, September 18, 2026 – Tampa, FL – Benchmark International Arena - ^
Saturday, September 19, 2026 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Thursday, October 8, 2026 – Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center - *
Friday, October 9, 2026 – Greenville, SC – Bon Secours Wellness Arena - *
Saturday, October 10, 2026 – Greensboro, NC – First Horizon Coliseum - *
Monday, October 19, 2026 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre - *
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – *
Friday, October 23, 2026 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Center - ^
Saturday, October 24, 2026 – Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford PREMIER Center - ^
Thursday, November 5, 2026 – Buffalo, NY – KeyBank Center - ^
Friday, November 6, 2026 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena - ^
Thursday, November 19, 2026 – Lincoln, NE – Pinnacle Bank Arena - *
Friday, November 20, 2026 – Des Moines, IA – Casey’s Center - *
Saturday, November 21, 2026 – Rosemont, IL – Allstate Arena -*

Featuring Support from: 
Grace Potter – *
Brothers Osbourne – ^
Old Crow Medicine Show – #
Fitz and The Tantrums – %