Kane Brown joins us on #AudacyCheckIn to celebrate his latest album, 'The High Road' 🎶
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00:00Who would you say in the country genre tells the best story?
00:04Oh, the best story?
00:05Yeah.
00:06Oh, there's too many to name.
00:07Any favorites you had growing up?
00:09I mean, a huge Randy Travis fan.
00:13When it comes to stories, I love Almost Home, Craig Morgan.
00:17It's a great story.
00:22This is your check-in with Kane Brown at the Odyssey Soundspace
00:25at the Hard Rock Hotel, New York.
00:27My man, we were just chatting about all the wonderful things
00:30you have going on, so congratulations on that.
00:33We're going to get to that in a bit, but I wanted to ask you,
00:36I feel like a lot of my friends who grew up on hip-hop,
00:39like myself, within the past five years or so, I would say,
00:43have really transitioned, became like country fans, hardcore,
00:48and my theory is that with both the genres,
00:53the storytelling is the common theme.
00:56Do you see that?
00:57Yeah, I think country music is just getting a lot of cool new elements
01:04to the music that's getting added.
01:07Plus the storytelling, and there's a lot of cool artists
01:10in country music that's really stepping out, I'd say.
01:14As far as hip-hop goes, I would say the undisputed champs
01:17of storytelling, maybe Slick Rick and Biggie,
01:21who would you say in the country genre tells the best story?
01:25Oh, the best story?
01:26Yeah.
01:27Oh, there's too many to name.
01:28Any favorites you had growing up?
01:30I mean, a huge Randy Travis fan.
01:34When it comes to stories, I love Almost Home, Craig Morgan.
01:38It's a great story.
01:40Don't Take the Girl by Tim McGraw.
01:42Cool one.
01:43Yeah.
01:44What are the kids listening to now, aside from the new album?
01:47I mean, man, my kids will listen to anything.
01:51I would say recently it's been like dubstep wheels on the bus.
01:54Okay.
01:55Yeah, and when that comes on, I usually go crazy too.
01:59Are you introducing them to any and everything,
02:02or do you have very specific artists you want to expose them to early on?
02:06My wife's a huge R&B fan, so just big voices in general.
02:13I think Whitney Houston.
02:15Love it.
02:16Anybody with a crazy big voice is what she's trying to get them to listen to.
02:20We doing the Drew Hills and that era,
02:23or just sticking to Whitney and Tina and stuff like that?
02:27Yeah, basically like that.
02:28Okay, cool.
02:29And then, of course, the Disney princesses.
02:31Right, right.
02:32They got some bluey songs mixed in there too.
02:34Do you remember what the last movie was that you took your eldest to?
02:39Like a movie theater?
02:40Yeah.
02:41I haven't been to the movie theaters with them.
02:43I think they've only been twice.
02:44Okay, okay.
02:45Yeah.
02:46The last kid movie I remember watching.
02:49I try to get them to watch all the stuff that I grew up watching.
02:52And they don't do it, man.
02:53No, man.
02:54Oh, really?
02:55Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:56But I'll be like, this was Daddy's favorite movie.
02:58And then Kate will show them her favorite movies.
03:02The funniest story I have is Kate's deathly afraid of E.T.
03:06Okay.
03:07And so I told my kids about E.T., and so now they love E.T.
03:11And they've just been walking around going, E.T., phone home.
03:14Bro, I've been trying to push Batman onto my son since day one,
03:19and it hasn't been happening.
03:21They like what they like.
03:22I was surprised they like E.T. as much as they did.
03:24That's crazy.
03:25You're a bad person for that, man.
03:29Are you guys doing playdates with just some of the kids that they're in school with or whatever?
03:38Explain to me how that even goes down.
03:40Because, listen, if I'm at Kane Brown's house for a playdate,
03:43I'm going to get video footage of me being up in there before I leave.
03:47Is it just like –
03:48Yeah.
03:49No, country music, everybody has a kid.
03:52Okay.
03:53So I don't think you'll find an artist that doesn't have a kid, or it's hard to find that.
03:57So there's like a country pool.
03:59You have like a WhatsApp group of playdates with just the other country kids.
04:03Yeah, kind of.
04:05That's wild, dude.
04:06Yeah, it's just a big family.
04:08Is there anything your mother saved from your childhood that she really wanted to give her grandkids?
04:16I don't believe so.
04:17Okay.
04:18But I will say she's got a lot of clothes from me from back in the day, like my sports stuff.
04:25Yeah, yeah.
04:26So Thanksgiving she brought me my old basketball sweatshirt back.
04:29So I got my Red Bank basketball sweatshirt that I've been rocking.
04:32Oh, that's cool.
04:33Yeah, it was cool to wear.
04:34I felt young again, like 16.
04:37I love that.
04:38So I'm Listening is one of our big initiatives.
04:41We put the spotlight on mental health awareness.
04:44You have been through a lot of crazy stuff, your childhood, the things you've overcome.
04:51As a husband, as a father now, how do you make sure that you don't pass along those traumas to your family?
05:02I don't know.
05:03That is the hardest thing.
05:05And I still try to work on that as much as possible, even if it's the smallest argument, trying to get away, not let the kids see it.
05:14And just love on Kate as much as possible.
05:17And yeah, I guess it's just being a decent person in front of my kids.
05:25I feel like every day is a new day and you try to do a little bit better every day.
05:30Yeah.
05:31Which for me, though, I mean, it's not hard to be any better than what I had around me growing up stepdad wise.
05:41Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:42So yeah.
05:43And I know your music is obviously a form of therapy for you.
05:48And you have like Haunted where you touch on a lot of those themes.
05:52Have the kids heard that song?
05:54Have you had discussions about that song?
05:56Oh, yeah, yeah.
05:57My daughter, I don't think they're old enough to really understand it.
06:01But I do know she's asked me to play that song like 10 times in the car one day.
06:05Okay.
06:06Which I thought was strange.
06:08Yeah, right, right.
06:09You're like, but the wheels are always turning, man.
06:12So maybe, you know.
06:13I don't know.
06:14She's only five.
06:15So I think it was just for the guitars and just the beat.
06:17Okay.
06:18I haven't really ever.
06:19I hadn't had to explain it to her.
06:21She hasn't came to me and asked me like, Dad, what's this song about?
06:24Do you feel like you're prepared for that?
06:26Oh, yeah.
06:27Okay.
06:28Yeah, I mean, I would talk to her.
06:29I want her to be able to come and talk to me about anything.
06:31And that's why I released the song.
06:33I want my fans to be able to do the same.
06:35I got a really sweet message from a guy in country radio.
06:40He got to hear the song before it released.
06:43And he sent me a video and just told him that he relates to that song so much.
06:48Thank you for writing it.
06:49And it was a very long but very special message that I keep close to me.
06:53And I ran into him the other day and gave him my number and said,
06:56If you ever need to reach out, I'm here.
06:58So it's a very lonely place to be, and I understand it 100%.
07:03I appreciate you opening up about that.
07:06Before we wrap, you know, staying on the mental health theme, social media,
07:10I think we all know how toxic it can be for us, for our kids.
07:16So how do you kind of balance that, how much you're, you know,
07:19reading the good and bad, how much you're on there?
07:22Yeah, I mean, honestly, for anybody, I feel like it's hard
07:26because you want to just, you know, you get so many good messages
07:30and you want to go read the negative ones, you know.
07:33It's just what our brains are torn on.
07:36I don't know, I think that's what's hard for me.
07:38I think that's why I got off social media for a little while now,
07:40trying to come back to it.
07:41I feel like the old man.
07:42Yeah, yeah.
07:44But yeah, I don't know.
07:45I was just, for anybody that's listening that's a new artist
07:49or, you know, going through the struggle of that,
07:51I would just say everybody has it.
07:54It's not just you.
07:55So don't, that's just people that ain't doing anything
07:58and they don't have anything better to do.
08:00Cool.
08:01Kane, congratulations, man.
08:02Thank you for giving us the time.
08:04Yeah, thanks for having me.
08:05We appreciate it.
08:06♪ music playing ♪