Keith Urban Helps Brantley Gilbert

Keith Urban is one of country’s top superstars.  He’s also happily sober, having gone through rehab 7 years ago.  So when he heard Brantley Gilbert was having a tough time with sobriety, he made a phone call.  Brantley recalled the moment with Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton:

“Keith’s actually been a really good dude to me.  When I was making changes in my life, I was down and out, I was even in the hospital, and he showed up and spent several hours with me one day out of nowhere, just encouraging me, because I had a lot of worries about doing my job.  Looking back, I was thinking, since I was 15 years old, I’d been sneaking beers, I hadn’t been sober for a lot of these things, I was nervous about writing, performing, and doing my job like I used to.  He told me, ‘Man it’s a whole new world.  It’s different but you’re gonna have a lot more fun with it.’ He was just uplifting and reassuring, he’s one of those guys when you meet him, you know he has a good soul. He has an awesome heart and is an awesome dude.  That was a pretty impressive thing to me.  You meet people in the business, and wonder how compassionate they are.  But he showed up out of the blue, and I hardly knew the guy.  I’ll never forget that as long as I live, and I’m indebted to him now.  For somebody of that stature to take that kind of time.”

So how long have you been sober? December 18th will be 3 years.  “I just got to a place where I felt it wasn’t for me.  I’m the type of person who likes to control what I can control.  That was something that slipped through my fingers, and had a competitive advantage over me.  So it had to go.  It was getting bigger than me.  I don’t want anybody to think that because I don’t drink that I’m boring.  I’m the worst influence in the room.  I drink vicariously through others.  I love that atmosphere.  I’m to a point now where it’s not for me.”

You’re 29 now, and you’ll turn 30 in January.  How do you feel about turning 30? “The honest the God truth, there were times in my life when I didn’t think, and I had doctors tell me I wasn’t going to make 30.  To me, to be where I’m at, I’m in a really good place, mentally and spiritually, and to be where I am turning 30, I’m proud of that, cause it could have gone the other way.  I’m glad to be here.  I bet I tear more stuff up between 30 and 40 than I did between 20 and 29.  Bring it on!”

Tags: brantley gilbert

Category: Audio