Tennessean A-1 Cover & Nashville Scene Tell the Story of
How the Back-to-Back Platinum Artist Survived to Write This CD
Nashville, TN – While Brantley Gilbert never thought the next chapter of his life – albeit a wild life straightened out – was anything more than the continuation of the story he’s been sharing with his rabid fanbase, The BG Nation, the back-to-back platinum underdog has found a resounding response to emerging from a wild life to a happy ending on The Devil Don’t Sleep. And that story has seen landed the man The New York Times has praised for “his active intelligence about melody and texture” on the front page of The Tennessean and inside Nashville Scene, the city’s indie weekly.
“All I know is to write my life, and the lives of people around me,” Gilbert says of The Devil Don’t Sleepwith his trademark humility. “Obviously a lot has happened to me in the last several years. For me, there’s a good ending, and a lot more songs to write. The devil doesn’t sleep, you have to be vigilant – and you also have to live your life.”
Chronicling Gilbert’s emergence from the blur, The Tennessean notes the hard charging songs are on there, but also notes in the A-1 profile, “there also are nods to his new way of living on the album, for which he co-wrote all the songs. In the most beautiful track, ‘Three Feet of Water,’ Gilbert writes of redemption and baptism, and in the album’s title track, Gilbert sings about remaining vigilant against anything that might drag him back down.”
Nashville Scene’s profile echoes the life that’s forged these songs. Validating the rough’n’rowdy side of what the roughneck rural songwriter embodies, Chris Parton also acknowledges the critical shift, offering, “now the thoughtful side of Gilbert’s new music is attracting as much attention as the rowdy stuff. A boozy jam called ‘The Weekend’ is Devil’s first single, but the title track is all about the daily struggle to outrun personal demons, not embrace them.”
Quietly building himself into a songwriter who taps into the gut of the outlier, the roughneck, the down-home and the downtrodden, Gilbert’s six No. 1s include writing Jason Aldean’s signature “My Kind of Party” and the CMA Song of the Year nominee “Dirt Road Anthem.” For the fans who clamor to his shows, shouting along to albums cuts that’ve never seen the radio, these songs torn from their lives – and provide the kind of hard-hitting performances that made his TAKE IT OUTSIDE TOUR one of the summer’s biggest tours, including to two sold out nights at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater, 14,806 people in Detroit and 15,038 in Cincinnati.
With his DEVIL DON’T SLEEP TOUR kicking off in Redding, PA on February 2, it won’t be long until Gilbert unleashes his new music on the flyover states. Like so many of the fans, the Jefferson, Georgian is committed to finding his place in the world, embracing life on its terms and creating a way to be that lifts people up. Sounds Like Country singles out “Outlaw Like Me” in their review, suggesting like much of the album, “It deserves more than a casual listen. On one hand, you might just think this is another ode to the good-hearted woman who loves her bad boy, but the lyrics show a man who is fighting against himself to open up as he’s never done before.”
The Devil Don’t Sleep continues the tradition of speaking to the heart of working America. With profiles coming in American Songwriter, NPR and Billboard, the story is starting to get told; but if you don’t want to wait, all you have to do it listen.
His winter/spring’s BLACKOUT 2016 arena tour played also to unprecedented numbers, as the man who won the American Music Awards Favorite Country Album for Just As I Am took his music to the heart of the rust belt, the true Midwest and across the South in the dead of winter. The TAKE IT OUTSIDE amphitheater tour has also seen the BG Nation turn out night after night.
“The people who love my music like to rock hard, to have fun, but they look a little deeper than people think they do,” the man The New York Times hailed for his “active intelligence about melody and texture” explains. “That’s why we try to take all the songs even further live. Because if you love the records, we know you’re gonna want it to hit you between the eyes when you come out to the show. And that fires us up.”