Well, that and whatever song lyrics he happened to be working on at the time. The pills, booze and fighting continued, even as he moved to Nashville in 2009 with a songwriting deal.įor songwriting appointments, Gilbert almost always carried a laptop bag with two bottles of whiskey and a pistol in it. Two bottles and a gunĪfter the wreck, a judge ordered Gilbert to group therapy and 12-step meetings, but the singer didn’t pay much attention. Gilbert, by then a singer-songwriter, wrote “Halfway to Heaven” about the crash, and he returned to the site of the wreck to make a video. He survived, and a witness said he even landed on his feet after being thrown from the vehicle. The truck flipped over five or six times and crashed into a tree. On a country road, Gilbert ran off the road. His friend left, and Gilbert took off in his truck after him. Gilbert was 19 when, at a party, he started arguing with a friend and punched him. Gilbert and his sports buddies started to abuse the pain pills they sometimes got after on-field injuries. “If I got to a certain point, I just wanted to fight.” I don’t know if it was little man’s disease,” he said. Gilbert became enamored with motorcycles and the big tough guys who rode them. “I remember drinking it off in the morning. “I think I remember liking it more than the other guys,” he said, smiling. He would sneak alcohol when he could as a boy, drinking more openly in high school at baseball and football team field parties.
His mother ran preschool programs at the local Southern Baptist church, where the family went regularly.Īnd Gilbert loved sports, playing wide receiver on the football team, outfield on the baseball team. “I’d dump 100-pound bags of stuff into the grinder and stack all the bags,” he said. Gilbert has only hazy memories of his childhood, but he clearly remembers working on the back of an insulation blow truck at 5 a.m. his father stopped preaching and started an insulation company. Just after Gilbert was born - on Super Bowl Sunday 1985, in rural Jefferson, Ga. His parents met at Johnson Bible College near Knoxville, and his dad went on to become a pastor. Gilbert, 32, grew up working hard, playing hard and praying hard. In his head, Gilbert raged: You don’t know me, man. Urban, calm and quiet, asked Gilbert to tell him what was going on. “I remember thinking, these (expletives) are pulling out all the stops,” Gilbert said, shaking his head slowly. The next day, Gilbert found himself in a room with a guy he’d never met, a recovering addict named Keith Urban. So he told his rehab counselors and his manager he was leaving, even if it was against medical advice.
“I had just been able to get out of bed and get to a shower without having to crawl,” he said. Gilbert felt better, or at least less crappy, after a few days at the treatment center. Doctors and a painful hospital stay told him that, but Gilbert wanted to leave Cumberland Heights. The emerging country star knew he probably would die if he didn’t stop drinking and taking pills. View Gallery: Photos: Brantley Gilbert through the yearsĪ few days into rehab, Brantley Gilbert was ready to bolt.
0 kommentar(er)
