Brantley Gilbert released his seventh studio album, Tattoos, on Friday (Sept. 13) via The Valory Music Co. Celebrating his release, the multi-platinum country rocker threw the “World’s Largest Album Release Party” in Nashville, Tenn., closing down Lower Broadway with a string of guests including, Ashley Cooke, Gary LeVox, Demun Jones, Struggle Jennings, and Colt Ford.
New Album, Tattoos
Four of those artists collaborated with Gilbert on Tattoos, which, as a whole, are intended to reflect the real-life ink seen on his body. Loaded with ten tracks, the record finds Gilbert paying homage to his personal life and the experiences he’s gone through, ranging from the good to the bad to everything in between.
While fans get an in-depth look into the 39-year-old Georgian’s life, this isn’t the first time he has found himself opening up and sharing his story with the world. He says he strives to do that with every project he makes.
Summing up Tattoos during an exclusive interview with Music Mayhem, Gilbert said, “My albums themselves do what the previous six records to this one did, and that is tell my story. So [that] allowed us to kind of break loose on the album and kind of bounce and do some old-school stuff. So you hear some stuff on there that gives you a little bit of nostalgia. It takes you back to some of our beginning records, how we used to write, and how we used to record. So, man, this record was a lot of fun to make, and I hadn’t been this proud of one in a minute.”
Tattoos follows Gilbert’s previous albums, including 2022’s So Help Me God, 2019’s Fire & Brimstone, 2017’s The Devil Don’t Sleep, 2014’s Just As I Am, 2010’s Halfway to Heaven, and 2009’s A Modern Day Prodigal Son. Before releasing his latest offering, the edgy singer/songwriter shared early previews, with “Off The Rails” and collaborations, including “Me and My House” featuring Struggle Jennings and Demun Jones, “Dirty Money” with Justin Moore, and “Over When We’re Sober,” with Ashley Cooke.
The Project Kicks Off With “Dirty Money”
“Dirty Money” serves as the album opener. Penned alongside Josh Phillips, the track is an industrial anthem that pays respect to the farmers working and sweating in the fields, earning their wages through an honest day’s work. Though Gilbert co-wrote all the tracks on his album, he gives most of the writing credit for “Dirty Money” to Phillips, who, he says, came up with the idea for the song.
Gilbert says he initially wanted to change the second verse to “kind of make it more me.” However, he was glad to be a part of the songwriting, considering Phillips has written No. 1 hits like Cody Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap,” calling the tune “one of the best country songs of our generation.”
“This dude is on fire, so he’s a good friend of mine, an insanely good writer, and the song’s a banger,” Gilbert notes.
As for his duet partner, Gilbert says he felt Justin Moore “belonged on the track,” saying, “There’s nobody in this business that would sing that song like him, and we went to Arkansas. He laid it down like he does and knocked it out of the park, and nobody could argue that he just killed it.”
“Over When We’re Sober” Featuring Ashley Cooke Was Co-Written by Jelly Roll
Another standout collaboration on Tattoos is the chart-climbing duet “Over When We’re Sober” with Cooke, which Gilbert co-penned alongside Jelly Roll (Jason DeFord), Brock Berryhill, and Justin Wilson.
Opening up about how the duet came about, Gilbert said he fell in love with the song “while we were writing it and [Jelly] knew it….there were a lot of names thrown across the table, and I was a fan of a lot of them, but my producer brought up Ashley Cooke’s name. Immediately, I went back to a few months before we played a show with her, and by the time her show was over my entire band and my entire crew were side-stage watching the show. We were blown away!”
“She was owning it — incredibly talented! She was walking around the stage like she’d been doing this for 20 years, which is really fun to watch,” he added. “I went and looked at what her latest release was, and it was an album with over 20 songs on it, which I’m a huge fan of. It also says something about where she’s at in her career, a dream duet partner, and it was a no-brainer. Once we heard her, her engineer sent us a dry pass from the studio, not tuned, no effects on her vocal whatsoever, and it was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s it. Look no further.’ So she knocked it out of the park, man, and she’s been an absolute rockstar to work with. So we’re blessed in that regard as well.”
“Tattoos” Gives An In-Depth Look At Gilbert’s Life
While all his songs provide insight into his story, perhaps no song gives a more in-depth look at Gilbert’s history better than the title track, which comes in at No. 3 on Tattoos. One of the deeper cuts on the project, the song mirrors Gilbert’s shirtless album cover, with him pointing out all of the art on his skin, ranging from one that represents a struggle with addiction to another, which pays tribute to him finding redemption.
“These ain’t just some tattoos / This is who I am / This is what I’ve been through / This is where I stand / This is where I came from, what I fight for, what I love / What made a man out of that old boy that I was / And I ain’t going back to / I didn’t get ’em ’cause I had to / But these ain’t just some tattoos / (But these ain’t just some tattoos),” Gilbert belts out during the prideful and powerful chorus.
“We’ve got some goofy ones,” Gilbert acknowledges of his body art in the interview. “But for the most part, mine tell my story. I’ve got reminders on me. I’ve got two clocks for my kids here that remind me I don’t have much time with ’em, so to make the best of the time I have. But this arm’s a lot of my story, a lot of flames and skulls. I put a lot of people through hell, and as you work your way up my arm, it was kind of me working my way out of the spot, out of the hole I dug.”
Pays Tribute To His Pregnant Wife Amber With “Gone By Now”
Thankfully, Gilbert has the love and support of his wife, Amber Cochran, whom he married in 2015 after an on-again-off-again relationship. A family man, the award-winning country artist shares two kids, a son Barrett Hardy Clay, and a daughter Braylen Hendrix Gilbert, with Cochran, and has a third on the way, due in October.
With his history of drug abuse and alcohol addiction, Gilbert admits Cochran has experienced many challenges throughout their relationship, and as with several previous songs dedicated to her, he leaves room for her on Tattoos, with one of his most personal songs titled “Gone By Now.”
“She’s put up with a lot of s**t over the years, and the bit of the song is, if I was you, I’d be gone by now. That’s probably true, but she’s a rockstar, man. She’s got number three on the way any day now. So I’m a blessed man, well beyond what I deserve and well beyond measure, and just try to do my part, be a good husband, [and] a good dad,” Gilbert shares.
Marks Brantley Gilbert’s Most-Personal Project To Date
“Out Here” dives into the back road, small-town lifestyle that Gilbert grew up on, while “Miss These Towns” serves as the bookend to the record, making it known that those kinds of places might not always be there. Then, “Me And My House” featuring Jennings and Jones, finds Gilbert fighting for family.
Of the track, he shares, “We’re not trying to preach to anybody, we’re not trying to make you do anything. How you run your house, it’s your castle. It’s none of our business. That being said, I think all of us kind of share a belief that society has a need, and we’re kind of fading away from the importance of the family unit and faith as a whole. And it was just our way of saying, ‘Hey, we’re not preaching to you telling you how to run your house, but this is how we run ours. These are the husbands and the fathers and the men we want to be, and these are the children. We want to raise that way.’”
“I’ve always been a ‘what you see is what you get’ guy, and there was a long chapter in my career where what you got was not so awesome, but things are a little bit different now, being married and having kids,” he explains, adding that he was once asked how he wanted to be remembered.
What Legacy Does Brantley Gilbert Hope To Leave Behind?
Trying to come up with an answer related to music, Gilbert admits that his perception of legacy has changed based on his role as a husband and a father.
“To be completely honest with you, I want to be remembered as a good husband and a good dad because you or anybody else that’s watching this, at the end of the day, I don’t mean anything by this other than the fact that it’s true,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks if my wife or my kids think something different. So that’s, it’s important for me to be me. I want to leave them a legacy they can be proud of.”
Reveals Plans To Get A New Tattoo In Honor Of His Third Child
While Gilbert has laid out his tattoos for listeners to understand him better, he insists he is not finished telling his story. He aims to add more ink to his collection.
“I have plans,” the soon-to-be father of three says, pointing out some areas on his body that could handle more artwork. “[and] I got little spaces on either side of my back, and that’s the only spot I got on my upper body, outside of my neck and my face.”
“I thought we were done building our family. My wife did too. So it was a little bit surprising, but we’re so excited about it. But both of my kids, so my entire torso, I have their clocks here. I have a giant cross that is supposed to remind me that that’s what I’m supposed to put first, which if I’m being realistic, that’s a hard one for me.”
Gilbert continues, “It seems impossible to love anything more than I love my wife and my kids, but it’s a reminder to make a conscious effort in that direction. But on either side, I have their names, and then they have guardian angels. My wife doesn’t really like the angels because the angels are wearing bandanas and token a case, but they’re my angels, so they can, anyway, so I have two little spots on my back, and I guess we gotta get a clock for the baby and the baby’s name, and they have to have a guardian angel. So that’s next.”
