“He Was Willing To Go There With Me” — Carly Pearce Says It Was Fun To Play Riley Green’s Love Interest In Steamy “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay” Video

Carly Pearce

I mean, somebody’s gotta do it…

This past Friday, Carly Pearce released a new duet with Riley Green called “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay,” which was written by Devin Dawson, Seth Ennis, Jordan Minton and Jordan Reynolds.

Of course, they had the internet in a frenzy just with the teasers they shared getting very up close and personal, but the music video takes all of that to the next level… they played a beautiful couple in the video, and just like in the song, they know they shouldn’t be together but letting that go is much easier said than done. There’s some elusive magnetism that keeps pulling them back together, and I’m always here for a good duet, and I love both Riley and Carly as individual artists which makes it even more fun to see them working together on such a great song.

Because of the steamy nature of the video, I think fans were almost more interested in the visuals than the song, at least initially, and who could blame them… that’s kind of the point of putting out a video like this.

It was directed by Wes Edwards and finds Pearce and Green grappling with the decision to see where the night takes them or to go their separate ways. It’s full of tension, temptation, and considering how sexy it is, it was somewhat surprising to see these two play themselves. Usually, with a video like this, unless you’re a couple like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, you would have actors do that part… but these two clearly weren’t afraid to go there, and I’m here for it.

During an interview with SiriusXM The Highway’s Macie Banks, Carly opened up about how the duet came to be, saying she texted Riley and asked him if he’d be interested in singing it with her, and within an hour, he was sending her voice memos of his parts:

“I love collaborations, obviously. I’ve also had a lot of success with collaborations, and I’ve gotten to collaborate with so many amazing people that I have a high bar for what I want. Obviously, Riley is Riley Green, you know, but to me, I’ve gotten to sing with him several times over the last several years, and he’s more acoustic driven in the way that he does music, he has this simple way of emoting that I really like.

It’s not over-produced, it’s very honest, it’s very real. And when we sing together, I was like, oh, you feel familiar to me in that way, and he felt the same. And so I just sent it to him. I texted him, and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m sure that you get these a lot. I really feel like this song is special.’ And I’m not kidding, within five minutes he texted me back… it was immediate, and we had it recorded very fast.

He was like, sending me a voice memo an hour later singing his part. I feel like, the way that he sings this, is a piece of his character in his voice that I don’t think people have heard. He sounds so good on this song, and I think it’s really special.”

And of course, she also answered the million dollar question in terms of what it was like to film that sultry video with Riley as his love interest, and Carly jokingly said “somebody has to do it” so she was happy to oblige:

“Well… it’s a very sexy song. Somebody has to play the role of Riley’s love interest, I decided I could do it, if somebody needed somebody to do it.

Typically in our world, it’s like, if it’s not Tim and Faith, you just have other people act for you, and you’re kind of the performance. He was willing to go there with me, so we play the role, and it’s fun.”

I have no doubt that it was… and I can’t say I blame her at all. Also, for the record, Carly does have a boyfriend so they were purely acting because I know there will probably be fans that come up with some wild new rumors, which tends to happen with basically anything Riley is involved in.

Plus, Riley has a great track records with his female duets, and of course the two hits he did with Ella Langley come to mind first in “you look like you love me” and “Don’t Mind If I Do,” so her choosing Riley was not random by any means and it’s a solid duet, indeed.

Of course, if you haven’t watched the video yet or heart the song, I’m sure you want to know, and you can check it out it here: