No country music artist starts out wanting to play country music without having someone they admire influence them. For platinum and gold-certified album maker Brantley Gilbert that influencer was none other than the legendary Garth Brooks.
“Garth Brooks had the songs, man,” he tells Buffalo, N.Y., radio station WYRK.
“‘The Dance’ and ‘That Summer’ and ‘Papa Loved Mama’ — I love that song….I got to see him play once, and he was just balls to the wall and wide open and sweatin’ everywhere, and he looked like a rock star,” Gilbert adds.
“And I was like, ‘Man, if I ever do this, that’s how I’m going to perform.’”
Brantley Gilbert has been true to his word. He is one of the most energetic entertainers to see live and we recently saw him surpass Brooks in one instance, when he beat him out for a 2014 AMA award.
“This year at the AMAs, I was in the award category with [Brooks], and it flipped me out,” Gilbert laughs.
“And then we won the damn thing, and I didn’t know what to think.”