Photo credit: Jeff Nelson
Brantley Gilbert
Has Brantley Gilbert gone soft on Fire & Brimstone, his new album released in October?
Has the man who helped popularize the so-called bro-country movement left behind the rough, rowdy and rocking sound that has been his signature? Is Gilbert showing an emotional, sensitive—and dare we say—vulnerable dimension in his songwriting?
To a point, Gilbert would answer “yes.” While it has tunes that kick up the dust (“Tough Town,” and “Not Like Us”), Fire & Brimstone leans a bit toward slower-tempo material (“What Happens in a Small Town” and the title track). It’s a personal and emotional album that brings Gilbert’s formerly tumultuous life up to date.
“I feel like this chapter of my life and the story I was trying to tell, it’s about a little bit of the chaos and the mayhem leveling out some,” he says. It’s no accident that “Fire & Brimstone” is the title track on the new album, the fifth from Gilbert.
“The theme of this record basically is showcased with that song. It kind of sums it up,” he says “There’s basically some parallel story lines going on. There’s my wife and I. There’s kind of the personal journey from being a boy to a man, a wild man to kind of settling down to become a dad and there’s my spiritual walk.”
As that quote indicates, Gilbert has made no secret that his penchant for partying got out of control when he was younger. Eventually it took a toll. In fact, Amber Cochran, the woman who is now his wife, broke up with him at one point—a split that lasted five years—partly because she wasn’t comfortable with Gilbert’s addictions.
A Different Life Now
“Without going too deep into that, it was definitely, yeah, I was all jacked up,” he says. “I told her a couple of years back, we were kind of talking about the old days, and I told her, I was like ‘Man, you don’t understand, I’d take you out and I’d wear myself out staying clean, not drinking, not doing anything. When I dropped you off, I’d have half of a bottle of Jaeger down before I got to the end of the driveway.’ It’s a different life (now), man.”
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Gilbert has come a long way since he started dating Cochran nearly a decade and a half ago. Obviously, he’s become a country music star—breaking through when two singles from Halfway to Heaven, his second album, topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
His career and profile only accelerated in 2014 with his third album, Just as I Am, which gave Gilbert two more No. 1 Country Airplay singles. 2017’s The Devil Don’t Sleep wasn’t as successful, but it still went gold and added a Top 10 song to Gilbert’s catalog. But the new album has given Gilbert another No. 1 Country Airplay hit with “What Happens in a Small Town,” which features a guest vocal from Lindsay Ell.
Along the way, he’s gotten his act together on a personal level as well, going through rehab, reconnecting with Cochrane in 2011 and marrying her in 2015. Now four years later, they have a son, Barrett, and a daughter, Braylen.
Chances are the songs Gilbert performs, especially as he adds new material to the show, will say a good bit about his new life. “I feel like through the years, people, really not just the songs, but the bodies of work and my career as a whole, they can go back and listen to a story,” Gilbert says of his albums. “It’s just like reading a book. It’s going back in time and listening, if you listen to all of my records, you’ve got a pretty good idea of who I am.”
Brantley Gilbert performs at Fiserv Forum on Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.
