GARTH BROOKS WINS CULTURE WAR BATTLE

Plus: A 1993 Interview at the Peak of his Stardom

Garth Brooks was the greatest country star of the late 20th century, and likely the biggest pop star of the 1990s, for all the right reasons. He broke a lot of traditions. He released conceptually consistent albums, rather than following the Nashville standard operating procedure of a few hits and filler cuts. He was widely known for his appreciation for, and adaptation of, the pyrotechnics of the rock shows he saw as a youngster in Oklahoma, such as those by Kiss and Meat Loaf.

How big was Garth Brooks? A website called Statista.com lists the most albums sold by artists in the United States through 2022. Brooks, with 157 million, is second to the Beatles (183 million) and ahead of Elvis Presley (139 million), Led Zeppelin (122 million), the Eagles (120 million), and Michael Jackson (89 million). The great majority of those sales were in the 1990s, before Napster broke the record business. Seven of Brooks' albums had multiple week runs on the Billboard Top Pop Albums list: It wasn't just the country charts he ruled. Two albums: No Fences (1990) and Ropin' the Wind (1992), were certified for sales of more than 16 million and 14 million, respectively, as of 2001.

At a time of great divisiveness in our country--it is more extreme now, but it was always that way--Garth Brooks was what they said about some banks during the near-collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008: he was too big to fail. When country music radio punished heretics (such as the outspoken former Dixie Chicks in the early 2000s) by banning them from the airwaves and awards shows, Brooks was a bigger man, a bigger star, than these rigid institutions could silence. He wasn't "political," but he always leaned in to do and say the right thing. "Inclusiveness is always going to be me," he said earlier this week. This was about deciding to continue to sell Bud Light in his Nashville nightspot.

Why is Garth Brooks back in the news? The Guardian reported a few days ago that Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted an anti-Garth Brooks message based on absurd misinformation: That Brooks had been booed off the stage at a Texas country music festival. “Go Woke. Go Broke,” the Texas governor typed, before it was deleted from Twitter. “Garth called his conservative fans assholes. Good job, Texas,” Abbott added.

Except everything about the "123th Annual Texas Country Jamboree" in Hambriston was false. There is no such festival (that would have started in the year 1900 if this year was its 123rd) and there is no such city of Hambriston, Texas. It was parody that sucked Abbott into sucker-punching Brooks, from the satirical Dunning-Kruger Times. The byline was by one "Flagg Eagleton, Patriot." The satirical intent is spelled out clearly on the site's "about" page: "Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined."

Governor Abbott's gullibility is an almost perfect representation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a concept in social psychology studied by Cornell University professor Dr. David Dunning in which, he said, "people overestimate themselves. But more than that, they tend to really believe it," especially their own competence at doing a job they're not really good at. That is from an article in the February 2003 issue of Monitor of Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

The so-called "patriots" were said to be raging at Brooks for saying he would sell Bud Light at his still under-construction Nashville club, Friends in Low Places, named after one of Garth's biggest hits. The anti-woke mob was repelled by Bud Light's ad partnership with trans Tik-Tok star Dylan Mulvaney during the NCAA men's and women's basketball March Madness. Which resulted in boycotts that have at least temporarily reduced sales of Bud Light.  

"Everybody’s got their opinions. But inclusiveness is always going to be me,” Brooks said to Billboard Country Live recently. “I think diversity is the answer to the problems that are here and the answer to the problems that are coming. So I love diversity. All inclusive, so all are welcome. I understand that might not be other people’s opinions, but that’s OK, man.”

That sounds a lot like the Garth Brooks I interviewed on November 6, 1993, when he was making a "return" from a very brief unretirement. I'm happy to post these excerpts from our Q&A. The fact that Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) and Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) were the two stars of the 1992 movie Wayne's World has everything to do with my decision to identify the speakers as "Garth" and "Wayne." Garth is in regular font; Wayne's questions are in bold. If I get a chance to talk to Garth Brooks again, I will suggest we duet on "Bohemian Rhapsody."

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Wayne: A YEAR OR SO AGO, YOU TALKED ABOUT RETIREMENT, BUT THAT DIDN'T QUITE HOLD.

Garth: For one thing, Wayne, the thing was always to be try to be honest with the people that follow us, and that I wasn't sure what my future was, now that I was a father. And retirement was a viable alternative. Now the child is out [on the road] with us, it's only still up to the child. The second Sandy looks at me, or I see it myself, that it's hurting the child, we'll have to quit doing this.

[Note: Garth and Sandy were married for 14 years, and divorced in 2000. He married country singer Trisha Yearwood in 2006].

Wayne: IT WAS INTERESTING THAT HOUSTON OILERS’ LINEMAN DAVID WILLIAMS MISSED A FOOTBALL GAME RATHER THAN MISS HIS CHILD'S BIRTH. ISN’T IT A SEA-CHANGE IN OUR CULTURE, WHEN A PRO FOOTBALL PLAYER MAKES THAT STAND?

Garth: All through mankind, they've had the war of making money versus family values. You go through it, I go through it. I definitely think the kid [Williams] has his values directly lined up the way they should be; as far as the football team management, business is business. It's a marriage whoever you're working for. If they're unhappy together they should part, but I think they understand each other. He did what was right, with no regrets. More power to him.

Wayne: WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE DISDAIN SOME OF COUNTRY RADIO SHOWED TOWARDS "WE SHALL BE FREE?"

Garth: That's a tough one. It's a song that expresses one guy's opinion, that's me. If there's any song that people know from me, that's the one that's probably the most me. So, I can only be me. Radio does what radio does. They've been wonderful to me, [but] it's their station. Same thing with TNN [the Nashville Network] and "The Thunder Rolls." It's their station, they can do what they want, and you let it go at that. When you try to force something, it never goes as well as somebody that gets to do it on their own.

Wayne: THE TITLE OF THE LATEST ALBUM "IN PIECES," SUGGESTS THERE WAS A RANDOMNESS TO IT, BUT LIKE YOUR OTHER ALBUMS IT IS VERY WELL BALANCED. DO YOU CONSCIOUSLY LOOK FOR THAT BALANCE, OR IS IT THE WIDTH OF YOUR INTERESTS?

Garth: I think it's a combination. Every artist should reveal himself or herself or the band's self in an album. That's what I am right there: a little bit of traditionalist, a little bit of rock, a little bit of humor, a little bit of intensity. Probably a lot more intensity than anything, and I'm hoping that does reflect who I am.

OBVIOUSLY, GETTING A SONG PLACED ON ONE OF YOUR ALBUMS IS ANY SONGWRITER'S DREAM. BESIDES THE ONES YOU WRITE, WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A SONG?

The realness has to be involved there. Very real. You get a thousand songs (submitted) about sawdust floors and Stetson hats, and that to me is not really legit, sorry. I've played those places, but that's not what most of my life is about. Most of my life is about Walmart and K-Mart, and average stuff. Like changing diapers and stuff like that. When you talk about real stuff like that, that pretty much draws me in.

HOLLY GLEASON WROTE THAT YOUR MUSIC IS ABOUT "COMMON DIGNITY," AND "IT TELLS THE AVERAGE JOE HE IS SOMEONE."

I find it very flattering, and if I could get inside you guy's [music critics] minds and hearts, and tell you what I'd like you to write about me, that's probably what it would sound like. But I truly do believe that: That each one of us can make a difference. It doesn't have to be somebody with money, or fame, or somebody with access to television, to make a statement or to change the world. I truly believe that, and people might say I'm not living in the real world, but I truly have to differ.

HAVE YOU ADDED KISS' "HARD LUCK WOMAN" TO YOUR STAGE SHOW? [Brooks recorded the song for a Kiss tribute album].

(laughs) No. My mom doesn't recognize me on the track. I did my best Peter Criss impersonation, simply out of honor and tribute to an era of music that I really enjoyed. It ended up sounding more like Rod Stewart with a bad head cold. It's a little different.

WHAT DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW ABOUT YOUR MUSIC AND BACKGROUND WITH KISS AND OTHER ROCK BANDS?

People I grew up in high school with weren't surprised by that, because they were with me when we listened to Destroyer, and Rock and Roll Over and Kiss Alive! Those were great albums for that time. The thing that I admired about Kiss, looking back on their music now, is that they were way ahead of their time. Very foundation-based band: They had verses and bridges and choruses that all sounded different than the last thing they did. And I really admired their intelligence in making their live show so different from anything you could ever hear on a CD, simply by the theatrics they did. I think that's the key to entertainment. First the music gets you to go to a concert, then you remember the pieces of the concert that stood out. When Gene [Simmons] would spit blood or blow fire, or Ace or Paul or Peter did their thing, it pretty much echoed in the head of the people who remembered that from the concert. It becomes a circle of Entertainment, whether you're there live or you listen to the CD again after you've been to the concert.

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’VE PICKED UP THAT CUE FOR YOUR OWN PERFORMANCES.

I think Paul Stanley said it best when he came backstage after a show in L.A. I met him and the first thing he said to me was: 'I see it.' What he meant was, he thinks he sees the influence Kiss had on me as an entertainer.

I'm sure that Kansas or Styx or Journey or Boston could come to the show and see their influence there too, the same way I'm hoping if George Strait or George Jones ever watches the show, I think they'd see the influence they've had.

THE HUGE NUMBERS YOU’VE BEEN PUTTING UP ON THE SCOREBOARD, DO YOU EVER SAY, WHY ME? WHAT AM I DOING SO RIGHT?

You know man, I don’t have a clue. I sometimes stand on the outside and take a look at what we do, I really don't think it deserves the appeal that it's gotten. I don't know why it does. I watched the first NBC special, and I said, wow, is this really what people see? I was pretty blown away. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the size of it. If that's what people see, then cool. Mainly, what I see though, are the mistakes, I hear 'em and they stick out like a sore thumb to me. Maybe its true that people are very forgiving, they're there to have fun, so they overlook the fact that maybe you're not the greatest musician or singer in the world, and they let it go, let it slide, and I'm thankful for that, because "Mistake" should have been my middle name, I guess.

IT'S HARD TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN ANYTHING WITHOUT BEING SOMETHING OF A PERFECTIONIST. BUT THE BEST RECORDS AND SHOWS ARE THE ONES WITH SOME FLAWS. PERFECTIONISM CAN LEAD TO SLICKNESS, AND THAT'S NOT FUN.

Yeah, sterileness. I think it comes back to that four-letter word, Real. People see you're not a machine, you can't pump out record track after record track. You're playing your record the best you can, and sometimes it ain't all that great, because you have off nights. But I think people dig the rawness, more than they do the slickness.

[BEFORE THE INTERNET, BROOKS CAMPAIGNED AGAINST RECORD STORES AND CHAINS SELLING USED CDS, WHICH DEPRIVED ARTISTS AND SONGWRITERS OF INCOME. WE PICK UP THE CONVERSATION FROM THERE]

Wayne: WE HAD A THING IN ONE OF THE NEW YORK PAPERS HOW IT WOULD COST A FAMILY OF FOUR SOMETHING LIKE $250 TO GO TO A KNICKS GAME [IN 1993].

Garth: Man! I would never have thought that. Anyway, the point is, there’s a guy Roy Robinson, we cut a song of his, "The Cowboy Song." We met him in Dallas, with his wife and little boy. He said to his little boy: you're going to college. We didn’t have plans for that before. His wife is pregnant again. We weren’t gonna have another child. My thing is, that guy deserves that. He doesn’t deserve to have his royalties be cut in half by this used CD thing.

Wayne: YOUR NEW CONTRACT WITH LIBERTY RECORDS IS KIND OF UNIQUE. INSTEAD OF TAKING A MEGA-DOLLAR ADVANCE, YOU OPTED FOR A DIFFERENTLY STRUCTURED DEAL.

Garth: Well, I can't talk much about it. But if the record sells, the record label and the artist both make money. If the record doesn't sell, only the artist loses money. That way, my record label isn't out on a limb, they can free money up to find other acts. I can only guess, but I would think that if every deal was like that, no label could possibly go under.

Wayne: DO YOU THINK IT'S AMAZING THAT MEAT LOAF HAS FOLLOWED YOU AND NIRVANA TO NUMBER ONE WITH BAT OUT OF HELL II: BACK INTO HELL? WHAT'S YOUR TAKE ON HIS REVIVAL?

Garth: For one, I'm a fan of Meat Loaf: The Bat Out of Hell 8-track I wore out. My high school girlfriend for three years, that's all she ever played. So some of the neatest memories I have as a teenager is listening to Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell tape. There’s something real cool that someone who does our video stuff told me, that the guy who writes the stuff for Meat Loaf has to be a fan of what we do. He pulled him over and showed him in the new song there's "the dance and the thunder rolls..." and I was very flattered by that, and it instantaneously had me pulling for him.

Meat Loaf is very theatrical also. Everything they do is like Phantom of the Opera stuff, and I'm a big fan of that. It's much more than music on a CD; it's visual too.

Wayne: MEAT LOAF IN FACT PLAYED AT A BROADWAY THEATER THIS FALL.

Garth: Really? That's Entertainment to me. That's what it's all about.