Stylistically fickle, the Zac Brown Band is hardly flighty

This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but the music of Zac Brown Band is for the birds.

To start with, take the country troupe’s debut single “Chicken Fried.” It’s a serenade awash in homey imagery and fiddle-savvy color that became a signature hit for the Atlanta-based band in 2008 - a full five years after an initial version was recorded. The song would set the stage for a large ensemble sound that remained country more in sentiment than in style.

Fast forward to the fall of 2019 and an album called “The Owl.” A bird of a very different musical feather, the record set Zac Brown Band’s music adrift in an ocean of modern grooves bordering on techno and ska with a guest list of all-star producers (led by Skrillex) and collaborators (topped by Brandi Carlile).

The nearly 12-year span separating these projects allowed for an understandable growth period. But listen to the records side-by-side today and they sound like works hatched from very different flocks.

“It’s not necessarily an evolution,” said Zac Brown Band guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Clay Cook. “There’s really no center to what we sound like. From time to time, we will just step in a different square. We don’t step away and step back. It’s more like, ‘Let’s try this right now.’ Our fans are really understanding of that. Even if they don’t like what we did two records ago, they might like the next record after that.

“Really, the last four records have all been completely different trips altogether. It’s kind of who we are. We’re just musicians who like to write songs and play together as a band. Anything that falls under that giant umbrella is kind of who we are. We’re not trying to write the same album over and over.”

Taking stylistic risks under the banner of a large Southern-rooted band is nothing new for Cook. Following a few years of study at the Berklee College of Music and subsequent work with a then-unknown John Mayer, Cook settled into touring duties with the Marshall Tucker Band. He had connections, mind you. His uncle is mainstay MTB vocalist and frontman Doug Gray.

The Tucker Band approximated the Brown Band in one key way. Both were branded with the stamp of specific genres even though their respective music regularly veered outside of them. Just as the Brown Band has moved outside country to absorb and reflect numerous contemporary pop inspirations, so did the Tucker Band regularly take offramps away from its imposed Southern rock tag. The group’s early records, ones that predated Cook’s involvement (not to mention his birth), drew heavily from jazz, swing and blues.

“It showed me that there are no boundaries,” Cook said. “Some people just called it Southern rock. But each of those Southern rock bands had their own flair about them. Marshall Tucker was definitely in its own field, just as the Allman Brothers were. Same with Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special and the Outlaws. They are all in their own pocket. They all had their own strengths. Just being around that made me appreciate and realize what I wanted to do in a band.

“But my uncle kept me in line, too. I was 20 years old when I came into his band and he didn’t let me get in any trouble. He also showed me the ropes. I learned more in those years than I did all through college and high school about my craft, about how to conduct myself and be on the road and travel. By the time I got to Zac Brown Band, I was teaching those guys how to be on the road and be in shows, stuff like that, because I learned everything from my uncle. His tutelage was invaluable to me.”

Following stints with Sugarland and Shawn Mullins, the well-traveled Cook was ready to make a difference in the stylistically restless Zac Brown Band in a way he felt he would not have been able to during his post-Berklee years.

“Back when we first broke in 2008, there were still guys wearing cowboy hats in country music. The genre itself has taken a lot of lefts and rights all the way through to where you are now. What it sounds like now is pretty different than what was on the radio in 2008. Through that, we’ve always just been ourselves.

“One good thing about that is that we were older when we made it. If we were 19 or 20 years old when ‘Chicken Fried’ came out, I don’t know … For starters, we wouldn’t have been able to write that song. Number two, we might have lost our way. Today, we’re just more confident in ourselves and our self-awareness. We’re just us. So in the landscape of everything over the last 12 years, every turn we’ve ever made feels correct.”

If you go: Zac Brown Band/Amos Lee/Poo Bear and Sasha Sirota

When: 7 p.m. March 6

Where: Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine

Tickets: $32.50-$99.50

Call: 859-233-3535, 800-745-3000

Online: rupparena.com, ticketmaster.com, zacbrownband.com