Bottoms up! Our friends at Wonderwall caught up with Brantley Gilbert after his rehearsal for the 2014 CMT Music Awards and boy did he give us the dirt on what’s been happening in his world. Below is just a taste of what the country crooner said about his life on the road, his puppy and whether or not he is single!
Brantley Gilbert on his new album:
“This record is a chapter of my life. It just picks up where the last one left off. It tells a story. I don’t sing anything I don’t write and I don’t write anything that I haven’t been through. It’s definitely my true stories. It’s real close to my heart, if you can imagine. There are a lot of inspirations behind it and a lot of lessons learned. It was four and half years between records, since the last one. A lot of folks were ready for it, just as ready I was to get the music out. But along the recording process, there were times where it’s just not ready. The songs were not right, the story’s not over. Maybe I hadn’t done enough yet. Or I hadn’t been through enough in this chapter to finish it up.”
Brantley Gilbert on the craziest thing to happen to him:
“Everything right now is a little crazy. My goal in the music business was to sell out the Georgia Theatre [in Athens, Ga.] — it holds 800 people. And it’s 20 minutes from my hometown. And we did that when I was 21. So everything since has kinda been a bonus.”
Brantley Gilbert on touring and his puppy:
“I’m on my bus more than I am in my house. When I’m in Nashville, I just pull my bus into a parking lot and set up shop and that’s where I live. And my puppy stays with me. I’ve had him [Sylo] since he was 5 weeks old. That’s my little buddy and he was actually born deaf. And his hearing is actually developing and he’s hearing a little better by the day. He’s about 6 months now. He’s the most chill dog. He does nothing but sleep all day, he’ll get up twice and want to play — maybe for two minutes and then he’s tired again. All he wants to do is drool and sleep. And his head is getting huge and he’s starting to slobber. So we gotta teach him some better bus manners.”
Brantley Gilbert on his love of motorcycles:
“I have five! My favorite one is still ’99 Harley-Davidson Softail Custom Night Train. It was the first bike that I ever had and I still have it. … Nothing quite rides like that ’99. Once you get used to something and ride it so far. I don’t know how I used to make long trips on that ’99, because it will beat you to death. It’s still fun for me to ride and it brings back some good memories.”
Brantley Gilbert on his relationship status:
“I’m a single man. I’m still a bachelor. I think ‘bachelor’ is better than ‘single.’ Doesn’t it sound more esteemed or established — more respectful and sophisticated? Single just sounds like ‘I’m ready to mingle.’ Bachelor is like ‘I got my s— under control.’ If something comes along then, you know, maybe. You get it!”
Brantley Gilbert on Nashville:
“I don’t get to spend a lot of time in Nashville anymore. I moved back to Georgia. I moved to Nashville for about a year and there’s nothing wrong with this town. I have a huge respect for a lot of people in this town and I love working in this town. It’s just not for me to live in. I’m a Georgia boy. For me in my life I have to be around the people that I started writing about and the places that I started writing about. Those people back home keep me in line, if they think my head is getting big they’ll put a knot on it. And I love that about home — it’s everything to me.”
For more on their talk with Brantley click HERE.
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