Luke Bryan doesn't have many kind words for the media. The country singer said an interview got him in hot water and also led to death threats from a motorcycle gang.
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Flashback to 2015, and Bryan weighed in on Outlaw Country. The singer said he couldn't sing Outlaw Country because he didn't experience the same things that Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard experienced.
See his comments below:
He said, "I think that people who want Merle, Willie and Waylon just need to buy Merle, Willie and Waylon. ... I'm not an outlaw country singer. I don't do cocaine and run around. So I'm not going to sing outlaw country. I like to hunt, fish, ride around on my farm, build a big bonfire and drink some beers—and that's what I sing about. It's what I know. I don't know about laying in the gutter, strung out on drugs. I don't really want to do that."
The blowback on that was immediate. You even had Jennings's daughter-in-law speaking out against Bryan. It also led to death threats against Bryan. Jennings was tight with the Hells Angels when he was alive as well as motorcycle culture in general. But Bryan thinks that the media outlet misinterpreted his words.
He said that he was just trying to say that he wasn't Outlaw Country.
He told Joe Rogan, "And I said 'Man, I don't know how to be an outlaw. I'm not an outlaw. I'm a college dude that played frat parties with country music, I f***ing did not go sit in a prison cell like Merle Haggard and wrote songs about guys going to death row. And I didn't go to Folsom Prison. I'm not like Willie Nelson... they're outlaws. And where I f***ed up is I said 'I haven't spent the night like sleeping on the street' and I didn't say like Johnny Cash's song 'Sunday Morning Coming Down.' That's what I meant, I just didn't tie it."
Luke Bryan Speaks Out
Bryan continued, "And that guy took that article and said 'Luke Bryan says outlaw country people are basically drug addicts who sleep in the street,' and the way they manipulated that story, I lost that whole crowd right then. It broke my heart. Waylon Jennings daughter went real public, she was f***ing mad at my ass... and I never meant that, I just meant Waylon was in there too. We all know what all those guys are because we all got to watch all the documentaries on those guys, we got to be students of those guys."
Bryan said things got so bad that motorcycle gangs threatened him.
He said, "That thing started growing and I had motorcycle gangs wanting to burn my house down... so what I did was call Waylon Jennings' daughter, and I said 'Ma'am I forgot to say like the Kris Kristofferson song 'Sunday Morning Coming Down,' that's all I meant by that.' And I think she accepted.
Ultimately, he sought advice from Willie Nelson and Jessi Colter who recommended he stop doing print interviews.
He said, "But by then the narrative started and since then, I can always tell if it not for that one little thing, I probably would've kept that whole base... and then the 'oh my god, he wears tight jeans and he must homosexual on the side' as I'm posing with my all American family."
