Jeff NelsonBrantley Gilbert is on the road right now, and at the top of the year, he’s got a huge North American tour planned. But now that he’s a father of two — he and his wife just welcomed daughter Braylen Hendrix — he says it’s getting harder and harder to get on the bus and leave the kids behind.
Brantley says his son Barrett, who’ll be two in November, is just at the age where he knows Daddy’s about to hit the road, and he’s not happy about it.
“Every time I leave the house…if I start walking my bag up to the bus, he kinda starts figuring it out a little bit,” says Brantley. “I don’t think he’s to the point where he knows exactly what’s going on but I think he’s got an idea that something’s gonna be different tomorrow, and he fights sleep a little more.”
“But the worst is when I have to leave during the day when he’s awake,” Brantley admits. “He doesn’t really like it when I get in my truck and go places, but when I load up on that bus, he knows it’s going to be for a minute. And man, he’ll, like, grab my leg and, you know, just, [say] ‘Da-Da,’ and…dude, it ripped me up! That’s my little man!”
Unfortunately for Barrett, Da-Da is going to be gone a bunch in the coming months, as he releases his new album Fire and Brimstone, due out October 4. His Fire’t Up tour starts January 23 in London, Ontario with opening acts Brandon Lay and Dylan Scott; in April, Chase Rice takes over for Dylan as the opening act.
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