For Brantley Gilbert, his back-to-back platinum success comes from writing about his life – and watching the people who live like he does respond. If HALFWAY TO HEAVEN was the story of a young man in the clutches of all it means to be wild, and JUST AS I AM considered the consequences of the life and the good times getting there, THE DEVIL DON’T SLEEP marks the next phase of the working class Country icon in the making’s life.
Sixteen songs on the regular disc. Ten more on the Deluxe edition. It’s a whole lot of music from Country music’s hardest hitting songwriter/artist. It’s also a lot of life lived.
“A lot has happened,” marvels the man nominated for CMA Song of the Year for Jason Aldean’s signature Dirt Road Anthem. “And anyone who knows me knows that every album is another chapter of my life. Even though it’s my life, even though some of what I write about is very specific to what happens to me, I think the challenges, the places where we figure things out are all the same – no matter what we’re facing, realizations all mean the same things.”
Though The Weekend explodes as one of Gilbert’s industrial strength five o’clock Friday party anthems, THE DEVIL DON’T SLEEP works a celebratory tip for other reasons. As Gilbert is quick to point out, the songs offer a cautionary undertow because, as the title suggests, temptation is a nonstop reality – and people need vigilance to avoid backsliding into the very things that defeat them.
“By now, everyone knows the story turned out okay for me,” laughs the man who sold out his entire BLACKOUT arena tour last winter, as well as his TAKE IT OUTSIDE amphitheater tour which closed with two nights at Red Rocks. “But the truth is there’s always temptation, there’s always something – whether it’s work or substances or gambling or whatever – that can pull you off the path. For me, thankfully, I got through it, got the girl back, got to keep my career moving…”
As a tortured soul trying to walk the straight and narrow but always feeling the pull of the devil’s right hand, THE DEVIL DON’T SLEEP is supplemented with a Deluxe version that captures the roots of his songwriting and the essence of his blistering live shows. The expanded package represents a fuller look into the hard-hitting songwriter’s journey to where he is now: one of four Country artists to mine back-to-back platinum albums for sticking to his unapologetically rock-country hybrid on Halfway To Heaven and Just As I Am, six #1s including Aldean’s Dirt Road Anthem and My Kind of Party and his own Country Music Be Country Wide, Bottoms Up, You Don’t Know Her Like I Do and the deeply personal One Hell Of An Amen, two consecutive sold-out headlining tours and the love of the girl he lost along the way and the 2014 American Music Award for Favourite Country Album.
