Many perks come along with being the child of a celebrity. Take, for example, the assurance that one will never go without. But aside from the benefits of being raised by famous parents, there are downsides. One of them is the unfortunate reality of being stripped from one’s own individuality.
Allie Colleen Talks Dad Garth Brooks
Allie Colleen, a 28-year-old, fast-rising country artist, doesn’t want that to happen to her. She wants folks to know that she is anything but a nepo baby. Although her dad is Garth Brooks, their relationship doesn’t go beyond that of father/daughter. In fact, the two don’t even discuss music or business.
“I think he’s very, very hesitant to tell me anything about music because it just doesn’t work the same as it did. I mean, you’re talking about generations different on how he entered the scene, how I’m trying to enter the scene,” Colleen explained while appearing on a recent episode of the BobbyCast. “My dad hates social media, and I thought maybe I shouldn’t do social media for myself to preserve Allie, but I’m like, who else is going to do it? I’m an independent artist. It’s just me and my manager. That’s all we got.”
Forging Her Own Path Without Being Label Garth Brooks’ Daughter
All she’s got indeed, as Colleen has built her success as a singer/songwriter, not getting any help from her old man. And that’s something she’s incredibly proud of. But, even with her hard work and dedication, Colleen, who is the child of Brooks’ first wife, Sandy, but also stepdaughter to Trisha Yearwood (who she refers to as her ‘bonus mom’), has fallen victim to being tied to her father’s name.
Frustrated over the struggles to maintain her individuality while also showcasing the authenticity that is oozing out of her artistry, Colleen has decided to ask the music industry for help in hopes they will step forward and make it clear to folks that Allie Colleen, the country artist, is a product of her own identity.
“I’m just asking the industry to help me out — to not put me in that box to people,” she begged while insisting. “I’m not going to fit in that box. They’re not going to like me in there. I don’t represent [my dad] at all. So it’s just always been tough when it’s like Garth Brook’s, daughter, Allie Colleen doing this, this. Now, all of a sudden, everyone thinks ‘Friends in Low Places’ is going to be in my set, and it’s not in there.”
Separates Her Personal Life From Her Professional Life
Colleen separates her personal life as a daughter from her professional life as a performer not only because she doesn’t want to be defined by Brooks’ legacy but also because she feels lucky to be able to differentiate between who she is both on and offstage — something she observed wasn’t the case with the “Unanswered Prayers” hitmaker.
“I have worked so hard in learning the difference between Allie Colleen, and Allie, and the way that I perceive my father is that he hasn’t had that luxury,” she suggested. “I don’t know that my dad knows there’s a difference between Garth Brooks and Dad, I only know because I saw the two differences [and] I didn’t realize who Dad was until I was probably 12 or 13…. I didn’t know the capacity, that it was global. I didn’t understand that. So I saw two different things.”
A Belmont University graduate, Colleen has released nearly a decade’s worth of material, including songs like “Work In Progress” and “Along the Way.” Despite her years of grinding it out her way, she still finds herself being unfairly categorized or boxed in by others, who tend to put her name and her dad’s name in the same bucket, so to speak.
“It’s just like this really hard label that nobody will move,” she said of the thought of being a product’s daughter. “There’s not even an Allie in the title…. My vendetta with ‘Garth Brooks’ daughter, Allie Colleen, is really, really great and works hard on her own.’ That whole sentence is still wrong because I am an adjective of the noun. That’s crazy. You know what I mean?”
“I’m Not A Byproduct Of Garth Brooks”
Colleen acknowledges that Garth Brooks is her father, and she loves him, however, she is forging her own path in country music without his famous name.
“I am a daughter to a title. Garth Brooks is a product that has been molded, shaped, and worked for, and I am a fan of it. I love what it represents. I love who it is. I love everything about it, but that’s what it is,” she continued. “Garth Brooks is a product, and Allie Colleen is a product. I’ve worked hard on it, on its shelving, on its packaging, on what it represents, on where it comes from, all of those things, but it doesn’t have a byproduct. I’m not a byproduct of Garth Brooks. He’s just my dad, and we love each other. And then I went off and made a career for myself in music.”
Proves She Is Capable Of Achieving Her Own Success
Colleen went on to say that others don’t just pigeonhole her musically. She said she also has had to outwork her classmates to prove that she is capable of achieving decent grades without any political gain or influence.
“My first spelling test, [I] made 100% on it. [I] did a great job. [I] crushed it. [But the] kid next to me spelled beans wrong. B-E-E-N-S. You know what I mean? Beans, rock on. Dude, you were so close. I got a 100% on that spelling test because of who my dad is,” she said. “Just being told from the age that you were six from someone who you sit next to in class and do the same work with you, do the same things every day. I went home and practiced.”
“That has been the case my entire life,” she added. “Every soccer team I’ve ever made, every tryout I’ve ever had, every grade I’ve ever made, the car, I drive, the house, I have, all of these things and everybody has their labels, everyone has their stuff. I’m not special. We all have our things we have to get over. Those are just things that I’m trying to get over.”
Has Been Compared To Ashley McBryde
Colleen’s most recent material, a five-track EP called Sincerely, Rolling Stone, dropped in mid-February. During the conversation, Bones drew comparisons between Colleen and Ashley McBryde, particularly about the song “Nicotine.”
“I want to be Ashley McBryde, so that makes me feel like the coolest kid on the planet, that I could even do something that Ashley would do. I think that’s the coolest thing on the planet….,” Colleen said after Bones told her the song reminded him of McBryde’s style. “That’s an honor. Even if I’ve been — and this doesn’t happen often because we don’t sound alike at all, but the first time that you watched me sing on YouTube and I did ‘She’s Every Woman,’ and you said,‘I can hear Garth’s inflections in her voice. I can hear that.’ That’s one of the coolest compliments I’ve ever gotten in my life. Bobby, I’ve always wondered if I could ever sound like him or anything like that because my siblings don’t sing at all or do music.”
“I think that’s cool. But at the time, too, you weren’t saying, ‘Oh, she can sing because of who her dad is.’ You didn’t do that thing of like, ‘Oh, genetics must be good’ and then you punched me on the shoulder. You know what I mean?” she continued. “I was compared, in that moment, to a song or something of an artist [I] love, and I thought that was really, really cool. So, anything that would have to do with music I’m honored for, but it’s just like if you told me that little Bobby Bones was walking into the room, I would just think I would already have a lot of assumptions about little Bobby that all have to do with you. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s human nature. It makes sense.”
For more information about Allie Colleen and her music, visit her official website.
