We've all seen the memes and jokes by now about Kane Brown needing to call the cops after getting lost close to home, but as he and fellow country singer Ryan Upchurch tell it, their recent ordeal is no laughing matter.
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The story begins with Brown, a friend and his friend's girlfriend scoping out the surroundings of the "Cool Again" singer's new house for the first time.
"The real story is I moved into a new house. I own 30 acres of 3000 around me," he explained in a since-deleted Facebook post. "I told (my wife Katelyn Jae) I wanted to go check out the property I'll be 30 minutes."
Since he only expected a short excursion through nearby woods, Brown left home in a t-shirt and shorts.
From there, circumstances were a perfect storm of you-know-what. Brown's phone was left behind in a truck, while one of his friends' phone had just seven percent battery life. "First world problems" as they say, but how many of us wouldn't be uneasy in a strange place and with limited communication options?
As it started to rain and the sky turned dark, Brown called Upchurch, a "last resort" who lives in the area. Upchurch brought along a friend, which ultimately added up to two lost country stars in a party of five.
A second search party formed around the time gunshots could be heard on or near the property.
"He has four other friends riding around in a canam and they start getting shot at," Brown says, as reported by People. "My buddy's girl who has asthma started then freaking out. We HAD to get her out. So we call the cops. The cops arrive and hear the gun shots and think we are shooting at them. We yell at them and tell them we are not armed and made it out."
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Upchurch has since addressed misconceptions on social media about Brown getting lost in his own backyard.
"Okay, look. I see all the memes and stuff about Kane Brown," Upchurch began. "Yeah, they're kinda funny. But here's the fact of the matter, man. You weren't there. I was there. Kane got lost in the woods, on property that he freshly just got to, doesn't really know that well. He goes out riding, gets lost, it gets dark, he can't find his way out."
Expect a new album from Brown soon via Sony Music Nashville, including a homage to one of country music's most fiscally successful decades.
"I'm excited about this album because it's my most diverse album so far. I've got a song with H.E.R. coming out on the album," he recently told Apple Music's Brooke Reese. "And then we got the remix with Nelly. It's my song 'Cool Again' so it should be pretty cool. But then, I got like a nineties sounding country song on there. I have country songs, my country songs that sound like me. And then we're already going to start working on another pop single."
Other hits by Brown include "Heaven," "Lose It" and the Lauren Alaina duet "What Ifs."
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