Brantley Gilbert launched a new series on his YouTube channel called Offstage: The Dawg House. The production finds the country artist bringing together some of his best friends as he gives fans a glimpse into his personal life away from the stage.
Those who tune into each new episode of Offstage: The Dawg House will find the “Country Must Be Wide” singer showing off his personal collection of bikes and cars and also taking fans behind the scenes to see his band rehearsals and more.
In the first installment of the new series, Gilbert gives viewers a tour of his farm, which has 15 cameras set up in various locations around the property. But, the biggest shock, aside from the vastness of the land, is the 60-year-old alligator that he says was caught on camera.
This clip titled “At the Farm: Part 1” begins with Gilbert riding an ATV on his property in rural Georgia.
Brantley Gilbert Offstage: At The Dawg House Series
“Back in the day, a lot of this was just marsh. It used to be a big valley down through here,” Gilbert explains while giving viewers a look into his plot of land in the sticks.
On the ride, Gilbert points out a creek and an abandoned building as he tells people his plans for how he’s going to update various portions of land, such as adding plants and apple orchards in handpicked areas. He also talks about locating all the wildlife surrounding his home away from the stage, like turkeys and deer. After that, he shares the story about an unexpected alligator he and his crew encountered one day.
It turns out the original owner and builder of the place had incorporated a fenced-in gator pond on the property.
“There was a rumor when I bought a place that there was an alligator here. I will tell you that where we are in Georgia, there are no alligators,” Gilbert shares, adding that he took steps to make sure what was moving around in the water was, indeed, a gator. “I came out here one day and saw something floating out there. It looked like a log, and I zoomed in, and the buddy was an alligator and not a small one.”
The Alligator Weighed More Than 500 Pounds
Gilbert added that he figured the owner before him “got in trouble” for bringing in the reptile onto private property. So he got in touch with a trapper to remove the animal from the premises.
“By the time the trapper got here to get him, you could walk out on the dam with a piece of raw chicken, clap twice, and no matter where he was at, the alligator would be sitting in front of you,” Gilbert said, adding that “the guy had a 500-pound scale and when the scale maxed out, he took a picture and I’m telling you that the alligator’s feet and tail were still on the ground.”
Gilbert added that, at one point, he thought he and his buddies were going to be gator bait. Before the trapper came along, the group’s curiosity got the best of them as they tried to put out bait to take as many photos with the gator as possible.
“We kind of got a little game going. We wanted to…. see how many different pictures we could get of him before the trapper came to get him out,” Gilbert said as he overlooked the body of water, explaining his experience with the gator. “There’s actually a picture of us that one of the cameras took, right? …. I’m standing here, and we were seeing ripples when we got up on the truck. I shined a flashlight out there first. Didn’t see [anything]. I came back this way, and his eyes, I mean, he wasn’t 10 feet from us. We were probably getting ready to be alligator bait. For all intents and purposes, if he wanted us that night, he could have had us. It was probably fitting to get us absolutely, one of us, at least, dude.”
“We’re Jackson County boys. We don’t know [anything]about no damn alligators. You know what I mean?” He added. “We were just trying to get a picture of one.”
New Album And Preparing To Hit The Road With Nickelback
Aside from letting fans into what he describes as his “little place of peace,” Gilbert is preparing to release the deluxe edition of 2022’s So Help Me God. So Help Me God (Deluxe Edition) The extension of his 2022 album is due on April 21, and includes five new songs. They are “Wrote The Book Around Here,” “Tailgates of Heaven,” “Bury Me Upside Down,” “All Over the Map,” and “Behind the Times.”
This summer, Gilbert will join Nickelback on their 2023 Get Rollin’ Tour. The 38-city trek, which includes support from Josh Ross, kicks off on June 12 at Quebec City, QC’s Videotron Centre and will hit major cities, including Phoenix, Montreal, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Dallas and more before wrapping up on August 30 at Belmont Park, NY’s UBS Arena.
