Brantley Gilbert: Outlaw Sh*t
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- All right, gentlemen, coming to main stage next, this is Bunny. Get up there, she's got a tornado of titties coming your way. Get those dollar bills ready. She's got an ass that shakes like Michael J. Fox. So get up there and throw, throw, throw them dollars. - Dude, that is fucking iconic. What's up, you sexy motherfuckers? Welcome to another episode of "Dumb Blonde." Today, my bubba,

Our Bubba, our family lovingly calls him Bubba, is in the house today. But you guys might know him as one of the bad boys of country, Mr. Brantley Gilbert. What's up? What's going on, fam? How you doing? I'm good. I like the setup here. This is going to be good. Oh, we got to get you to sign the wall. Everybody that is on the podcast signs the wall. That I can do. Yeah. What are you guys doing in Nashville?

So we came up, had some studio stuff to do. I actually got a studio put in my bus that'll work at home and it'll kind of allow me to write with guys in Nashville and do studio work at home. And my producer, Brock, can actually, the program we're using, he can use my screen and basically run my screen and run Pro Tools and everything from Nashville to

while I'm sitting in Georgia recording. So it'll save me some time, give me some more time at home with the kids and the wife. Aw, kids and wife. Shout out, Amber. We love you. She's such a hottie, dude. My wife is bad, son. Dude, that body? Like, come on. And she's so shy about it, too. So I'm like, it just makes me want to see more. Oh, yeah. You and me both? I'm telling you, I chase my wife around the house like a pit bull with a red thing hanging out. Yeah.

I love that though. She's so cute. You guys are adorable. We're going to get into your story in a little bit, but I did a ton of research on you last night and I learned so much really cool stuff about you that I never even knew. And I'm like super excited for my fan base to learn that about you if they don't know it already because some of this shit's like really fucking cool. Oh, thank you. Well, let's take it back. So you were born in Georgia. Oh yeah. Grew up in Georgia. And I read that your dad was a pastor.

Yeah, so my dad and mom met at a Bible college in Knoxville, Tennessee. My mom was raised in Indiana. My dad was raised home in Georgia, where we live now. And they met there. If you met my dad, you wouldn't in a million years know.

think that at one point he was a pastor really is he wild like you oh he's uh yeah he can be a little wild he he he's settled down though in the last few years he remarried and and we love his wife her name's crecia and she is just the sweetest sweetest woman ever he he married really well uh we love her to death but he's uh he's kind of he put the bottle down too so uh he and i both had a little bit of a

Some bouts with drinking and stuff, but he's, I think he's five or six years. Was that before he became a pastor or after the drinking? I would imagine both if I had to guess. My memory's a little hazy and I'm sure we'll get into that. But yeah, he, I think it was something he was working at. I bought a farm in Alabama at one point that I had for about 10 years. And for most of that time, he was kind of living there running that farm for me in,

It was in the middle. It was between you fall in Phoenix City and this little town called Pittsview, and there's literally nothing there but mead paper company. I mean, there's just nothing happening. And I think a lot of it was out of boredom, you know. Right. But, yeah, he's a good time, man. Anybody that knows my dad, he's funny as hell.

He's a trip. I feel like we need more people like that that are pastors, that are sinners too, and that don't try to be holier than thou and try to pretend that their life's perfect. I feel like people can relate to people who actually slip up and make mistakes and admit to them. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. I don't really... Trust is hard to come by for me, but me and your husband were talking about this the other day. If I...

If I'm messing with somebody and they don't have at least one vice, if somebody's too squeaky clean, I'm definitely not trusting you. Yeah, no, for sure. You have nothing on your record. You've never been to rehab, prison, or war. Yeah. I'm not going to trust you with nothing. No, I totally understand that. Except for women. We can't do prison and war, right? You don't want your bitches going to prison. No, no, no. Being old war whores. I don't think my wife would fare well in prison. Well...

I don't know. She's tough. She is. Cause you know, my wife's got the little cute innocent looking thing going on, but I'd tell you what, my wife is a gangster. She don't play. Oh no. She doesn't give off like she, she is very a hard egg to crack. That's for sure. Yeah, for sure. She gives off a vibe of like, uh, fuck around and find out. Yeah. And she don't pull no punches with me. I can promise you. I love that. Yeah. She's tough. But that, you know what? I think that's,

one of the million reasons that I love my wife the way I do. I don't think I could have married a woman that, that,

strong and hard-headed and stubborn because I am too. But I think both of us are... There's two alphas running around in the house. Oh, yeah. Same with Jay and I, so I get it. I love that you and Jay are the same way with how he is with me, like how you are with your wife. I think that's just amazing because a lot of men, especially because you're considered a sex symbol pretty much, you know? So they want to...

He's like, what do I wear to the podcast? I was like, well, you should take your shirt off because all the ladies would love that, you know? But no, you're like considered a sex symbol. So in the industry, it's very rare to find men who have that kind of like, you know, ambiance to them and are still just so proud of their wives and so proud to be married and just always upping their wives. So I love that about you. For sure. I'll tell you with my wife. I mean, you mentioned it. She is hot as fire. And I'm telling you from the first time I saw her,

uh she's drop dead gorgeous but man she works hard to be that way too like she is in the gym she's putting in work I mean it doesn't it's it's it's hard work there but and when I when I really think about you know my wife and what what her strengths are like I've never seen a better mom like you know she and my mom is my I mean she's my other I got three angels and that's

I guess four with my son, but my mom and my wife and my two babies. My mom was an incredible mom, but Amber's a freaking rock star. Doing what I do for a living, being gone the way I am, and even when I'm home,

man, sometimes I struggle to detach and kind of leave the road on the road and vice versa. Um, because for so long, this wasn't ever really a job for me. It was, it was life from, I mean, it's all I know from, from, you know, when I look back, the only fluid memory I have of life is being on three, four days a week, minimum home three or four. And,

Having some brief breaks, but really just grinding it out. When I was single, I really didn't ever come home. I built a house in my hometown. I just wanted to put a double wide on this little piece of property that I bought. I think I read somewhere that you actually bought that property because you and Amber broke up. And it was right down the street from her mom's house. It's three minutes from her mom. He didn't say no, ladies and gentlemen.

I wanted to put a double wide on it. And my manager and business manager talked me into building a house. And, you know, I kind of looked at it and I was like, well, if I'm building a house, I'm going to make damn sure she has to pass it every time she comes home from college and comes home from Savannah or whatever. Like, I want her to have to drive by that summer garden and be like, I really wasn't fair. You know, my wife and I,

We've got a long history, but we went five years without seeing or speaking to each other. Yeah, let's rewind real quick because you talk about your mom being your angel. Let's rewind it back to childhood really quick. I did read an article where you said that you did start writing music at age 13. Was that inspired by your parents? Did you grow up in a musical household? Or how did you know that you wanted to write music and be a musician? I remember...

My mom singing in church. It used to kill me because she sang so loud, but she sings like a bird. And her side of the family, my grandfather was in a military band in the Navy, and several of her brothers pick and grin. I think that's probably the musical side of the family. Just in your blood. But it was strange for me starting out. You know, a lot of people, when they start learning guitar...

they start learning other people's songs. And that was something that I did in the very beginning. But I always had this thing where I just wanted to do my own. Right. Being able to play somebody else's song was cool and you could pull it out at parties and, you know, you had your girl getters and everything else. But for whatever reason, I always just felt like, you know, I wanted to write my own songs. And that was...

From what I remember, from what my mom says, it started at a very early age. She said I used to have a little plastic guitar and I'd put on shows for an audience of one in my room and stuff. I don't remember any of that. So I know people are going to hear you say that you don't remember a lot of your childhood. And that's because you got into like almost in your fatal accident when you were 19. Yeah.

Yeah, I think 1920, somewhere around there. Yeah, can you take us into that? Yeah, it was 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning. And there's, you know, if you go around my hometown and listen to different people tell the story, I mean, there's some urban legend to it. I look at some of the things that were said about it looking back, and I couldn't tell you if they were true or not. There was one guy that said I landed on my feet or something. Were you drunk driving? No.

I probably would not. Allegedly. As far as the state of Georgia is concerned, absolutely not. It was just a reckless driving charge. I was driving recklessly. But no, to be completely honest, it was 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning. There had been a party the night before, and I had a little bit of an altercation with one of my best friends in the world. I was on my way. He tells the story a lot better than I do, but I guess he...

He might have been, you know, we were making some bad choices back in the day and he might have been harboring something that I wanted and he wouldn't give it to me and didn't want me to have my keys. And apparently I ran him out of his own house and I had a feeling I knew where he was going. So I was, I was headed where he went and

But I never made it. But it was wild because it was on the road you have to take in my hometown to get to the church I grew up in. It was like 8 o'clock, everybody and their brothers driving by. And I had a case of beer in the truck, I guess. There was beer spread all over the road. The one thing I do remember of it is it's so strange looking back. It's not like I've been diagnosed with this, that, or the other. But...

you know, I'll, I'll sit around and a lot of times when I'm talking with my friends or family, you know, they'll talk about things that they remember so vividly. And it's like, they're telling stories in detail and I'm picking up. It's just hard for you to really bits and pieces. So it's, it's, uh, but, um, damn, I lost my train of thought. Do you think growing up with, in a religious household kind of made you rebellious? You know what? That's, that's, that's interesting. Um,

We were in church every time the doors were open for a long time. And that was where a lot of my music started. It was kind of in that environment. And something looking back, I appreciate at the same time. I do think there was a period in my life, probably early teen years. I don't remember exactly when, but I do remember going to church.

to Panama City, and I got arrested down there for...

one thing or another. And I love how he never incriminates himself, right? Never, never incriminating or any of my friends. We just go to church and get, we talk about Jesus. Um, we love Jesus, but it's like, I remember, I do remember this. I remember coming home and people in my, my hometown, especially in my friend group, I guess, but you know, my friends that I was close with, we grew up playing ball together and

And they were good kids. I mean, we got in a little mischief, right? But I mean, nothing, nothing crazy, but we didn't get arrested either. Nobody went to jail really. It was just good, clean fun. Right. So I remember coming home and there being like this, this energy that I was like bad now, you know, I was like the bad boy. Nobody got arrested. I got arrested, you know, in Panama city and then found myself, uh,

in handcuffs a couple more times and it kind of turned into something that, you know, you know how small towns work too. Yeah, everybody talks. News just gets around, everybody's talking, all my dirty laundry's out and I just remember thinking like, I'm still the same dude that grew up playing ball with y'all's kids. You know what I mean? They're still my buddies. I just, I peed on the wall, I got in a fight, you know, I got caught. Yeah,

Yeah. I didn't do anything. Anybody else? My luck too. I was always the bad friend. You, your birthday is two days before mine and I swear we're ruled by Saturn and like our life is just a fucking lesson. Like jelly was telling me some of that, that you're into that stuff. That was, that's pretty interesting to me. Yeah, no, it's so real. Like we're ruled by just karma and rebellion. That's literally what we're ruled by. And that's why I grew up in a extremely strict Southern Pentecostal home and

and I was buck wild. I left home by 14. So, and I know just that tightness of religion, it kind of sometimes makes people want to go the other way. So that's why I was asking. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I definitely think that that was probably a contributing factor, but I do think there was something just in my nature. I mean, to this day, knowing what I know now and knowing, um,

good and damn well that most of the time I've got good people around me that can give me great advice and keep me out of shitty situations. But if you tell me not to do something to this day at 38 years old, there's a damn good chance I'm going to do it. Absolutely. I'm the same way. Don't tell me if you want me to do something, tell me not to do it.

it literally that will motivate me more to just do it um so let's move forward were you and amber um childhood sweet sweethearts or did you guys meet before you went to college or how did that work so we met i was actually working off some community service hours at a church that my cousin who's also like a christian counselor and therapist he's an incredible man um but he was the youth pastor there and

I went in and I'd play some songs and stuff and I'd write off all my hours and her family went to that church. So I met her at church, but I was working off, but the reason I was there was to work off community service hours. But I remember seeing her and just being like, who's, we grew up. So basically it's, it's the same town. There's a river that divides it. There's some County schools and then there's Jefferson and there's commerce. And back then,

Jefferson Commerce was the most heated rivalry. If you ask anybody around our town, that was the most heated rivalry in the state of Georgia. I mean, you weren't supposed to date across the river. We fought. We painted the bridge. We sabotaged each other's property.

I mean, you name it. It was just a heated rivalry. But there really wasn't anything between the two towns but the Oconee River. And there was a bridge that divided it. But it was a pretty heated rivalry. And I honestly didn't spend much time across the river, so to speak. But when I met her, when I saw her, I mean, in a weird way, I remember just being like, that is...

One of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen in my life. And she was a good bit younger than me. I had graduated. And I remember like talking on the phone with her and stuff until she was 18. And then we did the dating thing. But it was always an off and on thing that really revolved around what kind of trouble I was in and what kind of crowd I was with at the time. Well, you were growing up. Yeah. Figuring out who you were.

Yeah, and it was at that age too, man. It was when that rebellion thing really kicked in and I got to the point. And there were several different chapters in my life where it was like, all right, I think I'm the bad boy. I'll show you bad boy. You know what I mean? Right, yeah. But I did keep some pretty rough company. I was doing some things that I knew she wasn't. She was raised in a really good home too. Yeah. And yeah.

had never been exposed to some of the things that I was around on a daily basis and some of the people that I was around on a daily basis. And I just remember it being off and on. Her mama hated me. Her daddy and I, when he was alive, I remember like showing up there when I was still allowed to pick her up, you know, in the early days I would go and he'd be sitting in his chair and I'd go in and we'd chop it up and we'd talk. But when her mama walked in the room, but he just,

He closed down on me. Does she still, does she love you now?

Her mama? Yes. Oh, yeah, I think so. Good. We get along pretty good, Lee and I. Yeah, I love that. But it is crazy to be at that house sometimes because at one point in time, it was somewhere I wasn't welcome. Right. Look at the growth, though. It's amazing. And you guys still stuck it out no matter what. Even though it was off and on, you guys had something that always brought you guys back together. For sure. Which brings me to, you ended up getting your bachelor's degree in relationship and marriage counseling.

Does it say that? It does say that, and I never know what's real or not. Yeah, I don't have a degree. So when it came to college... He said, no, no bachelor's degree. Yeah, I would have been responsible for more divorce than Facebook or social media in general. But I was one of those kids that didn't really know what I wanted to do. My parents wanted me to go to college really bad. And I, at the same time, I was playing shows with this guy named Corey Smith, who to this day, he'll always be one of my...

biggest inspirations when it comes to songwriting um he's just an amazing dude uh insanely creative insanely talented but he took an interesting path and he was kind of anti-nashville anti-label anti-management all that stuff and he was making ends meet and actually around the same time period was he quit teaching and went into music full-time and i was like man

If I could figure out a way to make ends meet playing my music, that would be amazing. You know, that would be the shit. So that's kind of where my head was at. It wasn't, you know, I remember my parents wanting that plan B and that piece of paper. And I appreciate them wanting that for me now looking back. So did you end up going to college at all? I did. I went for like a year to college.

Georgia College of State University in Milledgeville. Yeah. And then I went like half of the, I was in college at, right there around the house at Gainesville College when I had my wreck. Right. Okay, gotcha. And then when the wreck happened, it was kind of around finals and, um,

It was just something I didn't go back to. Well, yeah, it was a life altering situation that you had gone through. I did read somewhere that you had said that you started writing music and again, and that was helping bring your memory back. Yeah, that and songs that I had written, like there were things that I was extremely like hazy about, especially right after the wreck. But I really didn't notice like, and again, like on paper, I've never been to a doctor that told me,

You have a TBI. Yeah, there's reasons that you don't remember. You hit a tree. Yeah, with my head. Right. I mean, come on, dude. That's like brutal. Yeah, but it's for sure cloudy. It's one of those things, too, where I think there's probably some things in my past that I've blocked out manually. It may have been one of those things where it was kind of...

Kind of convenient that some of that didn't come back or that maybe I suppressed some of it, you know, subconsciously just to kind of out of survival or just instinct. It also probably changed the trajectory of your life, you know? Absolutely. In a million different ways. And for a long time, you know, I went through this thing where I kind of credited, I credited that with making this huge change in my life. Not that it wasn't, but I think that was...

an easy go-to for me to say, this is where it all turned around. It really gave me an opportunity to go, okay, I was trying the college thing, but life can really be over that quick. So I want to make sure I'm doing something that I love. And I think when my parents, I remember before my papa died, it was not a popular choice within my family to, to try to do the music thing and actually pursue it as, you know, credible means of making a living. Um,

It wasn't as easy. I feel like you guys are like the OGs and had to really work to fucking get discovered. Whereas now you fucking make a tick tock, get millions of views and they give you a fucking record deal. Like back then, that's not how it was. Not at all. And, and you know,

we played we came up the old old old school way too where we played the smallest rooms i mean vfw's motorcycle clubhouses like oh yeah when i got with jay he was there was one show that we did and i think 10 people were there and he rocked that fucking stage like there was 10 000 oh yeah yeah like our goal was to go and if those 10 people showed up it was the tournament of street teams right we want to make sure we come in and

The only time I got in trouble with this is I was pretty confident at one point in time. And I remember telling this dude that owned Rick's in Mississippi. I was like, dog, you bring us in the first time it may not be sold out. The next time we come. Oh, yeah. And that was the only time I ever said that, that it didn't happen. Because we had a really good team from the beginning. I wasn't a guy that said, all right, well, if I'm going to do this music thing, I need a manager. I need a label. I need this, that, and the other. I had...

I was coming up watching this dude, Corey Smith, that was doing it without all that. Right. So my goal was to do everything I was capable of doing on my own without giving money away and responsibility away and control. Money that you probably weren't really making because back then it was just little...

I remember doing it for a long time, having to have a job on the side, maybe even doing a little dirt to kind of make ends meet because there were nights when I got paid. Maybe, maybe not. I paid the band. We'd pay our expenses, and I'd pay the band, and there wouldn't be shit left. A lot of times, paying the band was out of pocket.

Yeah, absolutely. I remember that's how it was with Jay in the beginning, just watching him. Literally, he would perform and pay everybody and have nothing left over. And that's exactly how he toured for like the first, I think, year and a half that we were together. It was just like just to get his name out there and just tour. It's tough. You're giving everything away. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about your debut album, Modern Day Prodigal Son. I sound like a baby on that.

It's wild. I'll have to listen to it. Yeah, I literally sound like I was 12. I recorded that record at a Praise and Worship. There was a Praise and Worship band that had a studio in Winder, and it's where Corey Smith got his first record.

Is Corey Smith still known? Why does that name sound familiar? Yeah, so he has a song called Wishing I Was 21. It was really big, but he lit up in college markets. I think Jay listens to him. Yeah, and he's still got some great stuff coming out. He still lives at home in Jefferson. He's just an incredible dude. Corey is one of those that...

um I think they you know there was some outside pressure to do the Nashville thing at some point and he was dead set against it and then when it came time that he kind of needed to you know to grow and kind of access some of those things it was just something I think in his space his creative space and where he works the best is is what he's doing now but he's he's starting to do some co-writes and stuff and yeah I'm excited about that for him because

you know, listening to that guy's songs. He was the guy that showed me, you know, between him and Skinner, he showed me it was cool to write about home. Yeah. And to describe like little things that...

He talked about 129, and I was like, man, that's the road that runs right past my house. It was just relatable. Right. Yeah. In a major way. And I'll never forget that. And that's something I do in my songs to this day. It's crazy how songs that you write, you think are the least relatable and the closest to the chest. End up going platinum. Yeah. And just end up resonating with people. Yeah. Well, it's just because it's real. Yeah. And I feel like the delivery's different. You know when you hear a song...

You can tell if a motherfucker believes it or not. Absolutely. Or if he's just mumbling along to some shit he thinks is going to make money. There is a difference in it. Looking back, I can tell you there were times, and you can hear it on the albums I did, there were songs on albums that I put out that...

that I'm not a huge fan of. I can tell you a lot of the radio singles that we have were my least favorite songs on the project. Was that because of signing a record deal, you feel like you maybe lost a little bit of creative control and they were pushing more of the radio hits? Maybe not so much creative control because that was always something that Scott and the label's been really good about allowing me to retain. Oh, good. Um,

But we also showed up in town with a little bit of bargaining power, a little more than most, because we were selling out really decent-sized rooms that a lot of these labels had artists go into those same venues that couldn't sell them out. Is that when your second album was re-released that you started getting that notoriety?

That was around the Hell on Wheels. Yeah, that was, or the Halfway to Heaven record was when some of that started kicking in. Yeah. I saw that you had worked with Average Joe Entertainment and then like Colt Ford and all them. And then you ended up getting, they re-released the second album from Big Machine. Yeah. Or Valor Music. Yeah, we had a distribution deal in place with Average Joe's and that was my brother Colt Ford. Yeah, we love Colt. He wants to come on the podcast. We're going to have him on the podcast.

He's the man. He's an OG, man. I'm telling you, and I told your husband this, and something not a lot of people know about Colt.

I've watched that man work as hard, if not harder than, than anybody I've seen in this business. I feel like he gives everybody a chance. Oh, he does. Several. Yeah. Like he really just like opens his doors and like, isn't a hater. And it's not reciprocated nine times out of 10. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like, you know, he, for, for whatever reason, you know, they told him we can't play this on radio. It's just not, it'll never work. Yeah.

You know, so he starts singing and kind of developing a singing voice, and the answer was still no. And, you know, some of the stuff that gets me, man, is, like, there's guys, and I'm not going to call anybody's name or anything, but when anybody's on the road and wants to play golf somewhere or they know that Colt knows somebody and they want to get in the studio with them or any of that, he's the first one to pick up the phone. He's the first to put, you know, to make ends, you know, to kind of,

Introduce you to anybody, get your foot in the door anywhere. But, you know, there's... When he needs it, nobody's there for him. Yeah. When he calls for that favor, when he calls to get on that tour or to just...

kind of talk about it. It's like the answer is no. I hate that. It's been tough to watch. The music industry in a whole is fucked and people don't realize all the politics that go on behind the scenes and stuff like that. I'm pretty vocal about it on here just because I've witnessed it firsthand with Jay, you know? That's why I get so mad when people are like, he's a sellout because he signed a record deal. I'm like...

You have no fucking clue what even is going on behind the scenes. Like you couldn't even, your little pea brain couldn't comprehend it. No, it's, you know, I think a lot of people think it's all red carpet and you know that, but it's definitely not that. And I tell you what, it's a different situation for him too, because he came in with bargaining power. He came in with a brand that's already built. Right. And we, and I can relate to that because that's, that's kind of how we came to town. We weren't,

We weren't going to sit in offices with the suits, so to speak, and saying, hey, begging for a deal. Please sign me. None of that. It was like, hey, if we figure out a way we can help each other and make this partnership mutually beneficial, then let's do it. But if I'm sacrificing creative control or I'm having to give you this, that, and other, some of these 360 deals that you see some of these kids signing now are...

Un-fucking-believable. Yeah. I mean, they're pretty much... They're just owned, you know? And I think that everybody thinks that anytime anybody signs a record deal, like, that's what they're getting. And they don't realize that, you know, people like you, my husband, other people have opened doors and, like...

you know, kind of rewritten the contracts for them to be able to do things that were never heard of before. Absolutely. We have trying to like be very choosy with my words. You don't have to, but yeah, we have a voice in the room, you know, in, in whether it be market share or your brand or how many passes you put in seats, you know,

All of that gives you a voice in a room. And your husband's got one of the loudest voices in the room right now. Literally, though. Yeah. He's so loud. In more ways than one. I'm a bicker is so loud all the time. I'm like, babe, take it down a notch. But I got to tell you, watching the CMT Awards and watching him bringing three home, I'll be honest with you, I don't really watch. I watched it back to watch him get where credit was due.

But I think that was a victory to a lot of us, man. Yeah. I think it was a victory to Colt, to me, to a lot of the guys that came from another world. He's a street kid. Yeah. I told him, I said, dude, you showed up uninvited. And that's been something that we've said,

You guys should write a song called Showed Up Uninvited. Yeah. I love that. Some of the best times I've ever had in life from places I showed up to. Yeah, totally. Well, let's bring it back to your second album that got re-released. That's whenever you ended up getting single of the year, ACM New Mail artist, and stuff like that for more than miles, and you don't know her like I do. When shit started taking off, take me on that journey. Yeah.

So you don't know her like I do. That was our second single. Was it written about Amber? It was. And I put it out. Check this out. I put it out. We, you know, this is before she was my wife, but while we were broke, rekindled or rebroke up when we were not seeing or speaking to each other at all. Okay. Gotcha. And, uh,

that was uh i and and knew damn well i'm not gonna tell you i i that it wasn't intentional i knew that song being on the radio i knew she was gonna hear it yeah you know that was uh no but how fucking sweet is that right like how sweet is that and spiteful i think you know it's sweet now that you know we kind of got back together and ended up getting married and having kids and

Were you in active addiction during that time? Oh, yeah. And that's kind of why she kept her distance from you. Can we talk about the addiction a little bit? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, from the first time, I don't ever remember. I remember the first time getting hammered. I stole a bottle of Crown out of my buddy's parents' liquor cabinet. And we had a field party. And I think I was 14, maybe.

And I remember from the first, I got sick as fuck. Crown's fucking just syrupy. But for whatever reason, I loved it so much it didn't matter. You know, if you eat food and you get food poisoning from something and you don't want to eat that for a while, it was not like that for me. I can tell you from the first time, I do remember this, from the first time I ever got drunk, I took advantage of every opportunity I got to get drunk again.

uh from then until december 18th of 2011. wow so alcohol was your alcohol um and this this isn't something i've been really loud about but it wasn't just alcohol for me it was alcohol and uh opiates pain pills uh i'd say when i was when i was at my worst i had a laptop bag um i mean i kept not a handle and not a fifth but

uh, about around like a liter size, whether it was, if I was on a bourbon kick, it'd be two bottles of that. If it was vodka, it'd be two bottles of vodka. If it was, you know, yeah, I went through a Jaeger kick for the longest time. I had two bottles of Jaeger and my pistol set right in between the two bottles. And then the front pocket had, uh,

Had my pills in it. I loved a good Lorderve myself. Oh, my gosh. Norcos, Lorderves, all that shit. For whatever reason, the Lortab 10 was my pill of choice. I loved the Norcos because they hit you a little harder and they had less aspirin in them. Yeah. Yeah, that was my shit. But it was like, man, and this is the honest guy truth. When it was at its worst, you know, I'd do vodka and orange juice in the morning if I was being seen. But I was probably...

Two bottles every 24 hours between five and 20 Lortat tens or perks or whatever I had. You know, the Adderall, the five ants together. I was doing like 30 milligrams of

and 70 milligrams of Iovance in a 24-hour period. Then I had the little blues that if I ever felt like I was dumping down a little bit. Oh, I love a Zanny too. Buddy. I used to have Zanny bars. So those, Zanny bars, I had a doctor that gave me 60 buses a month. And I hated them for whatever reason. Oh, because they brought you down too low. They brought me down too low. They put me to sleep. And the way I drank, I never remembered anything. And I didn't like...

I didn't like that. He said, no, I didn't like that. Yeah, I didn't like losing. Sanny's is where I draw the line, right? And you have to remember too, the dudes that I'm around,

You know, this is at a point in time when, you know, they kind of called me the bad boy of country music, but nobody really knew what was going on behind the scenes. Well, because I feel like it was a different era, and they were trying to keep everything hush-hush. Absolutely. Yeah. Because behind the scenes, buddy, I mean, I'm telling you, I was running with them dudes. Yeah. You know what I mean? My life wasn't easy company I was around to. Yeah.

you know, at the time when I was the most fucked up that I was, I was around people that I really didn't have like the Xanax thing passing out and slurring and all that. That's not an option. You don't hang around them dudes like that. You get fucked up like that. So, um, my, my thing was I kind of had a cruising altitude and if you didn't know me well, you wouldn't have known that I was messed up at all. You might've known that I had a quick temper and

You handled it really well. Masked it. Yeah, I had a good mask. But under that, man, it was just empty bullshit. I got to a point where I was literally, I remember being like, man, I'm not going to make it to 30. There's no way in hell I'm making it to 30. There's no way in hell I'm getting married or having kids. I'm just not that dude. At one point, I wanted to be an outlaw biker.

And that's, you know, I wanted to do my music and I wanted to do that. And even when I didn't really know what that whole world was about. And, you know, that's a story for another day. And to this day, I still have respect for dudes in that world. I still rock with dudes in that world. I got all the respect in the world for that. They run like a well-oiled machine. Oh, yeah. And I mean, it takes a different, it's a different kind of human being, you

that it takes to really be that dude. And one of the things that I learned with running in those circles was I wasn't that dude. What was the defining moment for you to get help and to get sober? So growing up in church, right? And my papa and my grandfather on my mom's side, but my papa was like, that was my rock. That was the dude. He hung the moon and the stars and all that shit. That was him.

in my life. And, you know, I was raised to value being a good husband and being a good father one day and, you know, to keep faith close in my life. And I had run myself to a point where none of that was in my peripheral at all. Like it just wasn't on the map. I remember, you know, it was, it had, my life had turned into a giant party. It was every day, all day. We would go

We would go out on the road or be out on the road and be on the way home. And I had, there were a few dudes, buddies that I'd call and they would make sure there was a party kicking so that when we got home, no matter what time it was, what day it was or whatever, we'd be out on the road.

That we came home from a party to a party. I always say it's not a party if it happens every day. Right. Literally. So it had to have burned you out. Oh, for years, man. I'm telling you, for years. It was all day, all night, every day. And I remember one night we got a number one. It was the number one party for Countrywide. It was our first number one at Country Radio. And we were going to celebrate, right?

And I realized somewhere in the course of all this happening that I wasn't celebrating. It was just another day at the office. And this is something that people have worked their whole lives to. People go broke and homeless trying to accomplish this huge feat. And we did it. And I couldn't even celebrate it because it wasn't a celebration. It was just another party. It was just another night, just another...

You just, it's kind of, it's another day at the office. And I remember going to the back lounge of the bus I was on at the time and sitting there. And then again, this is during the time too, where, you know, my mind was a little wild and I just remember sitting back there and for whatever reason, I had a moment of clarity and I was like, well, let me preface this by saying this came right on the heels of me being, I was hospitalized twice in like a few month period. One, uh,

There was some internal stuff. The second time was like I woke up, and I'd got to a point where about every two or three hours when I'd go to bed at, say, 2, 3, 4 in the morning, if I went to bed at 3, I'm waking up at 5, and I'm shaking. And literally, I kept that bag. That bag went everywhere I went. And at this point in time, my bed was on a hot tub.

What we called the compound, there was a guy named Mike Deacon who passed away a couple years ago, and a man that I love with my whole heart. I called him Uncle Mike. And he basically built, him and his wife built a new house, and they let us live in their old house that they brought their family up in. It was a big house, and we kind of cut it up into apartments. And I stayed in the pool house.

So there was a hot tub in there and I just kind of built a frame for a bed, you know, on top of the hot tub. That hot tub would never have water in it. It was slapped full of guns. Oh my God. I had two Harleys parked in the bedroom and shit. The ultimate bachelor pack. Oh dude, I'm telling you. There was literally at any given day of the week, no joke, you could pull up and walk down that breezeway and...

There were probably naked people in the pool and people funneling stuff. I mean, just partying non-freaking-stop. And, you know, we all lived there. Half the guys, my head of security, PJ, manager at the time, Steve Tussman, who's – you'll meet Steve before it's over. I can't wait until you do, too. Steve's been with me since 2006, and he's literally my right hand. I love that. If something happens to him, my right arm's gone.

And a big piece of my heart. He's an amazing dude that's been an amazing asset to our organization. But the compound days, this is right before I got sober. I remember one night we flew home private. We were at an end of tour party. It was the Willie Nelson throwdown tour. It was us, Jamie Johnson, Willie, Lee Bryce, Randy Houser, Lucas Nelson. And all of us were...

not sober. We were all in chapters of our life where we were all trying to, I think Willie has been sober for like 50 years. Right. But he was, this is, this is still Willie was, he would roll up pretty much walk off the bus, play the show, get back on the bus and they'd roll out. Right. Uh, there were a couple of nights he hung out and, and we got to smoke with him. That was cool. Uh,

He's the nicest dude ever. We get to meet him. Jay's playing a show with him, so I can't wait. I'm not joking. He's the best. An unbelievable soul. But we were at this after-tour party, and there was a little bit of a situation. I've never quit a tour in my life, but this is right in the middle of my bullshit. We went to this after-tour party, and there was a dude doing some shit in there that I didn't really like.

And I had a couple of my road dogs with me and he's kind of messing with his chick. And long story short, the idea was I went and asked him if he wanted to smoke a cigarette with me and we're just going to step outside, you know, kind of leave him in a pool of his own shit. They stopped it before that happened, broke it up. And one of the people on that tour said,

was screaming at me and saying, we knew you were going to do this. We knew you were nothing but a thug and this, that, and the other. And I was like, well, hold on, a thug? I've been called a lot of shit in my life. That's the first time I've been called a thug. So I remember calling, I had a guy out with me at the time. His name was Darren Glenn. He used to be the police chief in our small town, but he had retired. He was out working with us and kind of trying to

This was at a point where I knew I had a problem. Right. So he was kind of out. He came to the hospital the first time I was hospitalized and my parents were in there. Anyway, long story short, I said, call Scott, meaning Scott Borchetta, my record label president. Right. He said, it's two in the morning. I said, call him. He didn't answer. Well, I go up to the bus and I'm stewing and I'm wanting to fight pretty good. Yeah.

And I see him come running across this open field and it's like, his phone's got some disease he's scared to catch from it. And he was like, did you really call Scott? I was like, hell yeah. Give me your phone. I got on and, uh, he said, I'll never forget his voice. He said, Hey B, real calm, real nice. And it was the opposite of where I was at. My energy was fucking ready to like, I'm ready. Oh yeah. And it kind of disarmed me for a minute. And I was like, man, I ain't this guy. And,

I ain't wanting to quit anything, but this woman just called me a thug. I wasn't, you know, I didn't have any intentions of doing anything. That dude deserved to have his ass whipped. That's not, and he goes, B, okay, listen,

If you'll play this one last show, it hadn't clicked to me that this was the end of tour party. We only have one show left. Right. So I'm trying to leave a man for one. He said, if you'll do that, I'll send the jet to take you and your guys home. Well, I ain't never been on a private jet before. My redneck ass buddies at neither, you know,

It sounded like a pretty good deal. The first deal I'd done with him worked out pretty good. So I was like, all right, deal. We flew home that night, and we partied like hell the whole way there. And we got home, and I remember I had some friends that lived with me at the time. We'll say that. And I was in the bed, and every night, like I said, I'd wake up about two, two and a half hours, three hours, and I'd be shaking, and I'd just reach over. It was muscle memory. I'd reach over to my bed.

Pop a couple tabs, chug that liquor bottle, you know, where it bubbled like three or four times. Literally, when I tell you I drank liquor like water, it was literally like reaching over where you might wake up, dry them out or something, get a bottle of water. It was liquor. And, you know, I'd sit there and watch freaking Major Pain or some bullshit movie. You're lucky you didn't go into like cirrhosis. Well, this is where, so that night,

Usually I would finish the second bottle for my 24 hours. Dude, I'm telling you, this was the system. Every 24 hours I'd start, every new day I had two new bottles for that day. Usually the second bottle I would finish it in the middle of the night. I couldn't imagine. I remember bottoming the bottle out and the sun not being up. I knew something was off.

So instead of waking up every couple hours and taking sips, I was waking up a lot more frequently than I thought. And while I'm sitting there trying to figure out, I knew something wasn't right. I noticed this kind of came to me. And keep in mind, at this point, I'd probably popped six to eight Lortabs in the last 12 hours, and I'm hurting in my stomach area and chest.

Like I immediately, it started hurting more and more and more. And within 30 seconds of being like kind of waking up, I told people that were with me, Hey, somebody call my parents and somebody else get me in the fucking truck. I got out of the hospital. Something's wrong. And I had pancreatitis. My pancreas was swelling to the point it was seeping. Um,

My liver was jacked up. Kidneys were jacked up. I knew it was bad when I woke up in the hospital and my biker, I call them my biker dads were there, but Coop and Pop. And I was to a point in my life where in really my later teen years, I think it was probably like this, but my parents had got to a point where they really just couldn't do shit with me. There really wasn't a damn, I mean, so long story short,

I knew when things got real bad, if they really needed to get my attention, Pop and Coop would show up. And I woke up, and they were standing there with the doctor, and I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. I fucked up now. Did you end up going to rehab? They told me that day, and they were both pissed. And usually Pop will get pissed at you before Coop will, but they were both, I could tell they were concerned, and they were serious, and there was no bullshit going on in that room. And I remember Pop telling the doctor, like,

ma'am, I need you to tell him exactly what you just told us. Don't sugarcoat it. Tell him exactly. And she looked at me and she said, Brantley, if you don't start drinking, and I interrupted her, I said, yeah, I know, I know, I know. I won't make it to 30. But in my mind, like I said earlier, I was already to the point where I didn't plan on making it to 30. I'm already very familiar. I'm at peace with that. I'm good with it. Then she said, no, you won't make it to your next birthday. And this was like November, and I think my birthday was in November.

January for like months. She said, if you do not quit now, like this, this is going to kill you. You're in bad shape. Wow. So I kept all this hidden from, Oh yeah. The public. Oh yeah. They had tried. And when I tell you that we, we have built a family through the years and I had good people around me. I got fucked up and into my situation in spite of that. They, they're not enabling at this point. There were times when I'd get pissed off at them. They'd,

get to hiding my liquor bottles from me. So, you know, then I'm to a point where I've got stashes here, there, and everywhere. Airplane bottles. I have a feeling nobody's going to be able to tell you no. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that at the end of the day, it was like, okay, well, if,

you know, I know you're looking out for him. If you don't give me my shit, we're going to fight. Yeah. But, uh, I had homies like you growing up. Right. It was like, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm going to do, I'm going to do what I want to do until it kills me. And that's for whatever reason,

You know, that's been kind of a repetitive theme in my life. Something doesn't get my attention until it damn near kills me. Yeah. We're just hard-headed like that. Yeah, so Darren had come out on the road, and I was trying to slow my drinking down a little bit. And he got to where he would mix drinks for me and kind of give them to me as the day went along. But to be honest with you, probably 30, I don't even know if it was a month into that. Like, I was already hiding.

Well, you had a real addiction. Oh, yeah, buddy. I was hooked. But for whatever reason, that night, I had a moment of clarity. And I was like, man, you know, I really kind of need to, the things that I'm pursuing in my life are not,

They're not filling this gigantic hole. There's a hole somewhere. Something's broke. I'm leaking. I don't know how to stop the bleeding. I do know how to stop the bleeding. It's just whether or not I'm willing to do it. I didn't want to go to rehab. Whether it was court appointed or a judge or an attorney would tell me, hey, this would look good. We'd probably do a little better in court if you went to this program or this program. I'd done day partials.

where you go like half a day and then go home. I had been admitted for the 30 days to 45 days. And I didn't want to do that. I was dead set against it. But for whatever reason, I had some good people looking out for me that kind of insisted that I go and medically detox at a rehab facility. And I went to Cumberland Heights outside of Nashville.

And, uh, man, I remember for like the first five or six days and I told him like, look, I got 20 days and I've got to be on the, the Eric church blood, sweat and beers tour. I'm not fucking missing that no matter what. So everybody agreed. You're such a fucking just a hell on heels. Like, okay, I'm going to go get sober, but it's under my terms. And in this amount of time, I'd research the kind of medications I thought I needed when I left and no shit. This is no joke. Um,

I think I made 12, 13 days, maybe 15. At one point, I was ready to leave. Once I got out of the medical wing, so the first three, four days, no joke, for three, four days, I crawled from a bed to a shower and back. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't just... It was... Man...

The withdrawals. Fucking torture. They don't, when you're in a, I don't know for sure, but I just want to kind of explain this for everybody at home. Whenever you're doing a medical detox, do they make you actually detox and they don't make you comfortable at all? Wow. Well, they do. So they'll keep you from having a seizure, right? Right. But I actually, and this was kind of part of the deal for me, I wanted to kind of embrace some of that suck. I wanted it to suck. So that you.

you wouldn't go back. Yeah. And I mean, every thought that you could think of, I remember at one point being in there and being like, when I knew that I was going fucking crazy, I remember I had this thought like, man, what if we go play like a charity or show or something in Africa? One, I've got to fly there. Two, what if I get attacked by like a lion?

And something clicked in my brain that went, okay, we're fucked up. That was like self-realization. You were like, holy shit. Couple french fries short of a Happy Meal over here. Need to figure this out. But yeah, I went in. And once I got out of the medical wing, in my mind, I was like, I'm good. As long as I'm...

I had it lined up where a buddy of mine, it was a paramat, was going to come on the road with us in case I had a seizure and all that. And when I called to tell him I was ready to go, everybody disagreed with me to the point where they sent Pop. Pop and his wife came down on a motorcycle. Is Pop still around? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. That's my dude. Shout out, Pop. Yeah, Pop's the man. But my mom came up there. My dad came up there and, you know,

I was telling them just like I was telling everybody else, I'm fucking leaving. I did what I came to do. I've made a decision that's not going to be part of my life anymore. This, that, and the other. They sent Pop down there. He bought them a couple more days. I think it was between day 10 and day 15. I went in there on December 18th. I know I was in there for...

I remember my mom brought me like some Christmas presents to rehab. We love mom. Yeah, that's mama. But they came up, taught me to stay in a couple of days. But the day I finally told them was like, all right. And they knew they couldn't keep me in there anymore. Like I'm coming out. I need to go to a doctor's office because there's a couple of things I need to make sure.

And I'd already talked to the doctor ahead of time. He was in touch with my doctor in the facility. So Scott Borchetta and my manager at the time, Rich Egan, picked me up from rehab, took me to the doctor's office, and then dropped me off at the bus. And we went and did the Eric Church thing.

Blood, Sweat, and Beers tour in 2012. Did you stay sober? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. I went about a year, year two with nothing at all. And then I kind of started dabbling in the pot a little bit. Right. I don't think there's anything wrong with weed. You can't convince me, man. Here's the thing. I want to be careful with this though because there's tons of people watching this that

Y'all, we're all built different, right? Right, absolutely. We're as different as our fingerprints. All of our rock bottoms are different. All of our vices operate differently. And addiction...

being the demon that it is, is going to attack you in your most vulnerable place and in different ways. So I don't encourage anybody to, especially if you're an addict and I am an addict, I'm a full blown, I'm an addict. Absolutely. Like if I find anything I like, I'm going to do it till it hurts me, you know? Um, but for whatever reason,

With pot, that's not the case. Like I could smoke and I could go a week without smoking. I could go a month without smoking. I was trying to get life insurance at one point and I went off for like two months and didn't need it. They still didn't give me fucking life insurance. What? I'm a liability. That is crazy. Well, I mean, they're not wrong. I think insurance is the biggest fucking scam, but that's a whole other fucking conversation. Yeah. But yeah, I came out and man...

It was pots. I never smoked when I drank. I did from time to time, but I didn't like... You get the spins whenever you smoke. I don't like it. It just made me tired. Yeah. And in my mind, like if I'm tired and something bad happens, we got to run from the law. We got to fight somebody or we got to run for whatever reason. I don't want to be stumbling. I don't want to be sleepy. Yeah. I need to go. Absolutely. So, okay. So you stayed sober the whole Eric Church tour. Yeah.

Did you and Amber start talking again? Because you guys got married in 2015, right? So on June 16th of 2014, I got a call from my cousin who was the, the guy that was the pastor at that church. He and his wife, he's, he's blood family to me. Um, but they were really close with Amber and had been her whole life. And, um,

Amber and I both, when we split up for those five years, we both went our separate ways. We were both in different relationships. Mine was rather brief. I really wasn't, to be completely honest with you, I wasn't good at relationships. Well, you didn't love yourself, so how were you able to love somebody else or have somebody else love you the way you needed to be loved? And the environments I was in were not...

made for girlfriends or any of that. And I knew I was a whore. You know what I mean? It's like, for whatever reason, I don't know why, my conscience is fucked up like this. Like, I could, if a man did the right thing, I could put a bullet in him and put him in a ditch and be all right with it. Mm-hmm.

But if I cheated on my wife, I'd probably call her and have to tell her like the minute it happened. For whatever reason, my conscience is fucked up in that space. That's so good, though. I'm thankful for that, right? A lot of people wouldn't know that about you, though. They would just be like, oh, he's probably just like all these other people. That's a weird thing to me. And even when I was in a relationship, and anybody around me knows the way I can tell you this. If I was...

In a situation with somebody where we had decided we weren't seeing other people, I could count those on one hand my entire life. But when I was in those situations, I was not one to do all that other. But I knew that, and for that reason, that's why I stayed out of relationships. Amber, for whatever reason... Just had a hold on you. And even the girls that I was in relationships with, or whatever they were, didn't have...

I mean, girlfriends and, you know, any of that stuff. But even when I would try to move on or date somebody, I was always really upfront about, hey, this is my life and I'm cool where it's at. I wouldn't hang out, that kind of thing. I was never one of those shady dudes that was like, let's get married and run off kind of thing or try to get somebody to bed like that. It was never. I was always straight up honest and all that. But

For whatever reason, from the time I met Amber, there was just something. It was that she was what I couldn't have, and then she was the one that got away. Mm-hmm.

And when she moved on and went her separate way. So you taunted her for years. I don't know if I haunted her. She haunted the fuck out of me. No, I said taunted because you bought the property down the street from her mom. Wrote songs about her on the radio. Put songs on the radio. She's like, everywhere I go, I can't fucking just, this guy will not go away. But I will say this. I got to a point to where I knew she had moved on.

And she was doing, you know, and she had made a commitment to somebody else, and I respected that. Because I was like, dude, you know, the one girl I loved in my life enough to say, all right, well, if that's it, if that's your forever, then I'm going to leave you to it, and I'm going to go do mine, and mine's real fucked up. You know, it was one of those things. And that's one of the things I think that allowed me to kind of dive into some of those things.

Some of the rough crowd scenarios is like, dude, I'm not getting married. I'm not having kids. If it ain't that one, it's probably not going to work. Especially after I had a relationship. It was a loud one because we were both in the business. Even when that was going on, I think she knew there was a piece of me that was still with that other. She also knew there was a piece of me that was just...

renegade man like rebel I want to be moving when I was single no joke I never went I very seldom went home we get done with a show and

If I didn't have to be anywhere the next day, we may go bounce down to a clubhouse in Florida or we may go bounce to the Chicago clubhouse and visit some bikers. That's why you and my husband are such good friends because literally you guys are the same, sewn from the same cloth. Yeah. I always tell him, I'm like, you're the first to show up and the last to leave. Yep. And I'm the opposite. I'm the last to show up and the first to leave.

That's my wife. Literally. Yeah, that's my wife. Well, let's keep moving on. So you and Amber got married in 2015, and then you dropped your fourth album in 2017, The Double Don't Sleep. It was known for some really dark themes, I read. What was the inspiration for that? Because you got married, and I would think it would be a happy time in your life. You know, when we got back together, so...

My best guess about what that was about, I've always tried to be kind of unfiltered and just honest. And when I go into the album making process, I try not to give it much of a controlled, intentional narrative. Right. In other words, I don't try to paint a picture that's not. Right. I try to be where I'm at and also look back at

Some of the shit I've been through, because let's be honest, nobody wants to listen to sunshine and fucking butterflies and flowers for an hour and a half. You know what I mean? Like there's, there's something about music, especially right music. To me, it's the truest form of expression outside of prayer in, in, in times has been, you know, can, can feel even more powerful knowing it's not, but it's, it's, uh, to me, it's just,

there's a lot of power in it. Absolutely. You know, spiritually. You move millions with your words. Yeah. When you start to kind of wrap your head around that too, it kind of sends you in some different directions. But I think that's,

We're all a little bit weird. If you're an artist, you've got some screws loose. Yeah, no, for sure. I always tell everybody, being a partner of an artist, you don't realize how eccentric you have to be to be able to tap into each of those emotions, express them, write a song, work on it.

sing it and put it all together. Like it's, it's a talent. And if you do it right, relive it every time you sing it. Absolutely. Yeah. But I do think that that was some of the, you know, a lot of the songs I've written songs about things that I don't like having conversations about. And it took, it took me a long time where I was comfortable talking about a lot of stuff that you had gone through. Yeah. Just because, well, one, you know,

I, my adult life, most of my adult life, I spent in circles that you don't really talk a whole lot. You know what I mean? You just kind of keep quiet. Your business is your business. Cause if I start running my mouth and telling a bunch of stories, I'm liable to incriminate you, me or one of our buddies. That, but I also feel like men, you guys do not, cannot catch a break when it comes to mental health.

You know, like you guys are not allowed to feel emotions. You're not allowed to be depressed. You're not allowed to be sad. Like you have to suck it up as little boys. You're taught to suck it up, you know, and you carry that through life. And so that just, sorry, Chachi, he's just over here sawing logs. So that just, you know, it follows you through life and you're just not, you know, you guys literally get shut out as far as it comes to like mental health and like being able to express yourself.

For sure. I think, you know, the songwriting gave me a kind of a loophole there. Right. But I will say, man, you know, there's something about a strong man that was raised that way and has embraced that and knows how to vent and express himself in his own way while maintaining that tough exterior. I think there's something to that. There's a reason that we look up to those men and want to be like them. And I feel like that's something in society. I feel like...

Right now, we need to be careful with. When it comes to my son, totally different in my approach as a parent, right, wrong, or indifferent. My grandmother says I'm too hard on him. You and Amber have two kids, by the way. Yeah. Barrett and Bray. And Barrett is just the best-hearted little kid ever. Literally, you can see it in his eyes that he just has a giant heart, and he's just a kind soul. And that scared the shit out of me worse than if he would have been a hellion from the time he came out, just because...

You didn't want him to get hurt. Well, that, but that's dangerous in the world we live in today. This world will chew you up and spit you out. And I feel like society right now, we're all on this shit about don't hurt somebody's feelings or don't trigger somebody. The fucking world don't work like that. Everybody gets a trophy. Yeah, it just don't. I'm not on that. And I feel like some of this...

I understand the talking points about toxic masculinity and this, that, and the other, but there is healthy masculinity. Yes, absolutely. And we have to promote that in these kids. I'm not raising a little boy. I'm raising a man. And if I had my preference, I'd raise a king. So I want my son to be a leader. I want him to have the fucking moral fortitude and the faith. I want him to be equipped with all the things he needs to

To lead people in good directions. Which he will because he has you. I hope so. I think toxic masculinity stems from people who were raised by narcissistic men and stuff like that. And I think it's so rampant because that generation, like of our parents, they didn't know how to heal. You know, they didn't want to heal and they still...

were like perpetual victims. So they inflicted their trauma onto their children. So I think that's why toxic masculinity is such a huge thing right now, because there are so many people who were affected by it, but you're right. People need to start talking about the healthy masculinity and like being able to raise your babies. And, you know, we need men in, in, in the world, strong men, masculine men. We need strong women as well. My wife, you know,

No joke, I give her a hard time. One, and I know this can be kind of a cop-out. People say this a lot, but in all reality, I was in the delivery room for both of mine. Oh, God. I'm telling you, if I'm responsible for childbirth, if men are responsible for childbirth...

The human race has been extinct a long fucking time ago. I don't know how... Listen, shout out to all the moms out there because that's the reason I don't have biological children. Childbirth scares the living shit out of me. Well, for good reason. It is barbaric. There's a lot that can go wrong, one, which I was terrified about that, but two, it's like...

I mean, it's barbaric. Oh my God. I mean, I remember looking at like, dude, you are a fucking soldier. Like I knew you were a bad ass, but this is on another level. But you know, my wife's been through some real shit in her life too. She lost her dad.

I wish Amber was here. We could have brought her on. Yeah. She's funny. But yeah, like she's an incredibly strong woman and knowing what I know about you, you're an incredibly strong woman. That's so important in society. But, but,

I do think we got to let men be men too. I agree. You know what I mean? And I think there's things that are some uncomfortable talking points that people don't want to hear. Like some of the necessary, I feel like it's necessary for some men, me in particular,

There's a guy named John Lovell that has a platform called the Warrior Poets Society. And a lot of that's about unapologetic masculinity, faith, but just really about being a good man, a better husband, a better dad, but also being the most dangerous dude in the room. Like as a man, and there's a thing on there called the order of man, and this guy talks about

there being three responsibilities that we have as men and as head of our households. And I feel like I'm the head of my household, but I feel like I do share that with my wife. I'm gone so much that she's... She holds it down. That's the queen. I'm the king, she's the queen, and we rule together. Yeah. But he talks about us having three responsibilities. That's to protect, provide, and preside. And protect is more than just...

having a gun in your pocket, right? Like, and I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of people, but I, I, I believe in carrying firearms, but I, I believe in, I believe that responsible gun ownership is,

includes training, right? Absolutely. Just having a dude that goes and buys a gun and sticks it in his pocket and says he's armed is just as much a liability. They just passed a law like that, didn't they? Mimi, didn't you just tell me that they just passed a law where people can just go buy guns without any training? Yeah, and you know what? My views on that are, I feel like,

most of the people that you would fuck with in life, right, and I feel like this is the case for me, are more so kind of middle of the aisle politically. There are a couple things, you know, a couple topics or situations that put them hard on one side of the aisle. And for me, I lean right mainly because of guns. Right. And our Second Amendment right being a constitutional right. Right.

Yeah, I believe we should all be protected. Yeah, we're not getting political. We're just talking about things. But I do believe that, you know, it is, you know, my responsibility as a husband and as a dad, not just if I'm going to own a gun, I need to know everything about it, how it works. Yeah, absolutely. But I need to train, you know, on situational awareness. I need to train tactically. I need to make sure, you know, situationally mainly because...

You know, if you don't know the laws and the states you're in. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? And you pull that out. It doesn't matter what kind of asset you think you are. No, for sure. It's going to cost you years of your life and maybe somebody else's life or yours itself. When we tour, we have to check the laws because of the security to find out, you know, what we can and can't do with. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's like, you know, as a dad, I believe that there is a certain part of me that it's almost a responsibility to be dangerous in a sense, to be capable of violence, to be capable of protecting myself, my friends, my wife, and my kids first and foremost.

I believe in violence. My husband doesn't. He tells me all the time I need to calm down because I grew up an extremely violent human too, but I've softened a lot in my years. But I'm the same way. Pop out, like, fuck around and find out. I think it's a necessity to have the capability, just to have the capacity to do violence. Absolutely. John talks about being the most dangerous man in the room. It's not just about...

Having that to be intimidating or to make somebody fear you. Right. I'm not the one that's going to put my gun on my hip so God and everybody can see it. When I've got my... I mean, you've seen where I carry my... It's right there. Yeah. You know, we're... Nobody needs to know I have it. No. But that's a real G. It's not coming out, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless...

unless there's a situation that presents itself where there's no other option. Absolutely. I couldn't agree, but I spend a lot of time kind of following guys that talk a lot about that stuff. And in that space, cause I do want to be, and I want my son to see, you know, what being a man is really about. And it's not all rubbed dirt on it. There's that and other, I feel like to be a real man and a real well-rounded man, we not only have to have the capacity to, to be, um,

maybe vulnerable is an uncomfortable word for me to use, but that may be the word, but you know, to be vulnerable, but tough. Yeah. Like a lion and a lamb, right? Is what John says sometimes on his site. It's like,

We need to be capable of showing love and sympathy and empathy. That's being a real man, being able to show your emotions to the people that you love. They need to see that. Your family has to be able to see that. So that's a quality of a real man. But also to be able to just be like the protector, the provider, and stuff like that. That's also great qualities of a man too. Absolutely. I believe that with my whole heart. We were talking earlier about my papa. Yeah.

You're talking about a man that hung the moon and the stars and everything, like I said. And him and my mom's dad, too. They're both hard men. Yeah. You know, they're not, they weren't the happy-go-lucky, all smiles all the time. But you knew that he loved you. He didn't have to say it. There you go. You know, he lived his life, the way he lived said, I love you.

Every time you looked at him, even if he was whipping your ass, you know, it was out of love. Yeah. That was my dude, man. Well, moving on from 2017, what, you know, like what is going on now? Like what is in the plans and the works for you now? Like,

What can we expect from Brantley coming up? You think that you get to a certain point in life and in your career where things start to slow down a little bit. And that has not been the case for me. Yeah, you have had a lot of staying power, which a lot of artists can't do that. There's a blessing and a curse, right? But yeah, I feel like I'm grinding harder right now. I feel like I'm kind of back in the good old days again where I'm

Not many favors going on right now we're having to earn or keep, but I appreciate that. I have a respect for that, and it's kind of like the thing where somebody gives you a car. You see kids that give their first vehicle given to them and kids that have to buy it.

I guarantee in five years that kid that bought his car, that car's going to be in better shape than the one. Absolutely. You know what I mean? So I don't have a problem with working harder for it. What makes that hard is being away from my kids and not being home. I have a two-week rule, but if I'm being completely transparent and honest, there's some things not sitting right about me.

how much time I've spent away from my kids and how much I've missed. Would you ever bring them on tour with you? We do. If it's close to the house. But see, the thing is now they're both starting school. Amber's Amber's actually doing something pretty cool. It's like I was dead set against homeschooling my kids. I just I wanted them to go to the high school I went to and learn social skills and all that stuff. But the more that I'm seeing about this, you know, some of the things that are being taught and also that, you know, we're looking at these shootings.

um i called my wife and i was i was talking to a good friend of mine about it was right after the uvalde thing happened and we had been talking about some different options for school and um i got some kind of some some details on that that shooting that weren't so public that that really man fucked me up for for a week and a half solid i just man i was mad i was worried scared but

just raging mad. - Any sort of violence towards children?

is just unacceptable. And it's just hard to stomach. When that just happened here in Nashville, I was watching the news and I held it all together until I saw those little babies walking out of the school all holding hands and I fucking lost it. Like I just started bawling and I'm not an emotional person like that. So to even see that, I was just like, dude, what is going on in our world? No. And the justicism isn't able to,

to hand justice out to those motherfuckers deserve in my opinion. Um, so is Amber going to homeschool them now? She, so Amber is a teacher. She, she, yeah, that's what her degrees in teaching and she was teaching third, fourth and fifth, right? That is really hot. My wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife, my wife,

Had this idea for... It's like a micro school. It's like a homeschool school. Basically, the parents essentially are homeschooling the kids, but they do it through the school. I don't want to speak on it too much. It is her thing. I don't want to take away from it one, and I don't want to explain it wrong. But it really started to appeal to me because I know she'll... I have no doubt they'll teach faith there. Faith is...

important to me and kids too. Not so much, I'm not as big on churches as some are. Mm-hmm.

my wife you're not big on religion but you're big on spirituality yeah yeah that's how i am and my and you know i have to look at it like this too like my church experience is different i still live at home in a small town and when we we show up it's just it's it can be weird and i've had some weird church experiences too but spirituality and faith and believing god is important to me especially when it comes to my kids and i have no doubt though

you know, they'll make sure that's, that's intact to what they're learning. But I want my kids to learn history. I've got a godson, 16 years old, um,

Has no idea, doesn't know a damn thing about World War II, Vietnam, doesn't know anything about any of the generals or what went down or why it went down. Because they don't teach that in school anymore. Right. And I just think, man, that was one of the most important things I learned was history. I love history and it teaches us, right, because it repeats itself indefinitely but in the worst way. If you're not educated...

you know, about it and how things happen. Not only does it happen again, it happens again worse. Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted them to learn. And it's literally happening right now. Right. Yeah, the world is a circle, I guess you could say. Yeah. And I want, you know, I want my kids to, I want them to learn history. I also want them to learn how to do stuff outside, man. And we've got a new farm that's near,

near the house and near where the school's going to be. And they'll be able to do some stuff there, spend some time outside, but also these kids are going to be safe. Yeah. Um, when I say there's going to be security there, I don't mean we're going to have a little man with a piece. Absolutely. So you just got off tour with five finger death punch and you're about to go on tour with Nickelback. Um,

Daddy Chatty. Daddy Chatty. We all love Daddy Chatty here. Motherfucker's a trip, dude. I love him. Ever since Jay sent me that video of him, what does he say?

Silly bastard. We say that to each other now all the time. If somebody does something, we're like, you silly bastard. There's a fucking trip. He'll get me on FaceTime and it's just fucking wild. That tour is going to be interesting. I can't wait. We got to come see a show. Like if our tours cross, because when do you guys leave? I told him, you know, if...

I told him, and I'll tell you the same thing. Y'all are welcome anywhere I am. And if you're not, I'll fucking leave. Y'all are family to me, man. And I told him, anytime we cross paths on the road, y'all got a home there. When do you guys go out?

We leave in June. Okay, so we'll be right behind you. Yeah, we're out for three months. It's a long one. It'll probably be the last time I do that. Yeah. I'm not saying I'm going to retire from touring after this year, but the three-month thing away from a three-year-old and a five-year-old, it's just not something I'm probably going to do again. Maybe you're just kind of ready to calm it down a little bit.

I think on that side of things, maybe, um, on the career side of things, I think I feel like there's in some ways I'm just getting started. This, you know, your husband and I working on this project and I'm super stoked about, do you have a name for the project yet? I think we're leaning towards co-defendants. I love that. Right. Um, but I, I think, you know, we hadn't talked much about it yet. And I,

We kind of spilled a little tea in our own way in some different places, but this is a good place to talk about it. I've been waiting for a long time for somebody to come into this space with that kind of authenticity. That's dad. That's that real, that has seen some shit. I'm telling you, when we walked in, I was a fan, but when I walked in the room and we shook hands, well, already, we parked in the parking lot of the studio.

and there's dudes standing outside. I know now it was Boston and... Oh, he always travels with security. Yeah, another dude standing out there. And I look at these dudes and I ain't gonna say anybody's name or nothing, but, you know, when you spend some time around the right kind of company, you know eyes. Yeah, you know what's going on. And...

literally I was like okay dude I get it and I walked in and the minute the minute I mean the minute we looked at each other I feel like I've known him my whole life like we just I just knew the dude he loves you to have a heart like he's got in the past that go hand in hand together and to be able to do what he's done and use that as a weapon against the evil man to me is is something to behold um

And not to take anything away from any other artist in this, but I'm not saying that he's the only real one on the block right now. No, not at all. Everybody goes through real shit, right? You guys just are friends, you know? Yeah, we're friends, but I do think that, man, that...

When it comes to being real, I feel like there's an obsession right now in society that people are just obsessed with being real. Yeah. 99% of them have no fucking clue what that means. Those that claim it ain't it. Right? I've always said that. It's like, dude, you don't hear your husband telling nobody that. I mean, I'm giving him credit where credit's due. Yeah. You know, his track record speaks for itself. No, he is. But the things your husband's proud of and the things he talks about and the things he's writing songs about and the uncomfortable stuff, too. Mm-hmm.

But in conversation with him and knowing where his life's at, what his intentions are with his wife and the people around him, like that's what makes it special to me. You know, you can, there's, there's real songwriters in every room. There's real artists everywhere in this town. But when, when you're able to take not so pleasant experiences and, and use them to help other people and to make change. Yes. I love him because he's making waves and he's,

And no doubt, I get excited. Anytime somebody comes on the scene that I can tell is just rock the boat some, I start getting excited. Yeah. Dude, CMT is just embracing the country music. First of all, I married a fucking rapper, okay? Yeah.

My husband pulled the biggest okey-doke in the world on his own wife. So we are now thrust into the fucking country world and they just, they love him. It's either they love him or they are so confused. And I love it because it keeps people talking. Yeah, let them be confused. Yeah. Do you have an album coming out? Oh yeah, yeah. Before we get out of here? April the 21st, we've got the deluxe coming out of...

He's looking at his manager right now. So help me God. The Lux edition is coming out April 21st.

I'm actually going home today, but I'm coming back in three days, and your husband and I are jumping in the studio for another week. I'm excited about that. You guys always make magic, so I'm excited to see what you guys do. This round's going to be a motherfucker. Son of the Dirty South did great. Oh, and it's still doing... Yeah. We're still making it work. Where I play that fucker till the day I die, I love it. Yeah, love it. I'm looking forward to that project. I know he's got some stuff coming out, too. You know, I've...

Another thing about getting into y'all's world that's been interesting is I've actually been introduced to some folks in Struggle and Adam Calhoun. I love A. Cal. Oh, dude, man. He's the best. I'm telling you. Him and Struggle Boat. I don't know about Struggle, but I'm just kidding, Strug. Y'all are good now, right? Yeah, we're good. Totally kidding, Struggle. I think the world of both of them dudes, and I know they got some stuff going on, and

Man, that's exciting to me, man. I feel like everything that's going on in our little camp right now in our little family is exciting. You guys are like building a kind of like your own, I don't want to say genre, but your own like... Whatever the fuck it is. Yeah, like we can't put it in a box, you know? But it's different. It's still country, but it's completely different. And it's just you guys, it's outlaw shit. You know the last time that happened and worked was...

When Shooter's Pops and his buddies did it and they did it right. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you guys are really on to something here. Yeah. And here's the thing. We're not trying to be Waylon and Willie. No. But it's a totally different thing. And I do think if it's unapologetic, if we go about it the right way, man...

The world loves outlaw, but the world needs outlaws. Absolutely. You got to have those of us that live outside the box are what gives you your fucking box. Yeah. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I feel like we can own that space and have a lot of fun doing it. So, man, I'm stoked about that.

Start about being a dad and hubby and getting on the road. The Nickelback tour is going to be awesome. And I think we've been in some talks about playing some more shows together. Good. Coming up. Yeah. Well, Manili just walked in too, so we can talk to him. Manili's in here somewhere. The fuck's up my dude?

Well, Brantley, thank you so much for coming by, babe. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate it. What do you know? Why don't you tell people where they can find you, all your socials? I'm sure they already know where you are, but just show them on here. Oh, yeah. I can't get nobody my address. I show up like a crazy bitch from Texas. My manager's in the room. Give me all the shit. All right, so I'll tell you this. This may disappoint some people, but I don't even have the fucking password to my social media. What's his website to send everybody to?

Brantley Gilbert dot com. Brantley Gilbert dot com if you need anything. What are you? Brantley Gilbert on Instagram. Brantley Gilbert on TikTok. I'm the same dude everywhere. Just Google Brantley Gilbert and you'll find him. Come on. I can't wait to have you back, Brantley. Let's do it again. Yeah, baby. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Dumb Blonde. I will see you guys next week. Bye. Doesn't he remind you of Bussy? That's our basset hound.