Brantley Gilbert says he wants to earn the respect of the people around him every day just like Toby Keith has done.

Brantley obviously wants his music to be successful; however equally as important to him is the gain the respect of the people that work for and with him. Brantley has been both an opening act and a headliner on the road in his career. He points out the Toby Keith tour as one he was able to learn from as an opening act not only from Toby directly, but also indirectly by interacting with Toby’s band and crew.

“A cool thing about that tour was meetin’ people that had been in his crew for 20 years and still talk good about him, which to me, in this business a lot a times it’s cutthroat and you gotta make some decisions. Sometimes people’s feelings get hurt, but to have people that’ve worked for you for 20 years and still believe in you and talk good about you, dude did somethin’ right,” Brantley says.

Brantley says that is one of his career goals, “That’s only somethin’ that I can hope, at the end of the day that’s pretty much my long-term goal is all the guys that work for me, and with me, to look back after 20 years and say, you know what, that dude did right by me.”

When you look at the success that Toby Keith has had over the years I would say that Brantley is a smart man looking to the “Big Dog Daddy” as an example of how to do things right.

Toby Keith is one of the headliners for the 2015 Country Life Music Festival July 17th-19th at Three S-sters Park in Chillicothe, IL. Get complete concert and ticket details here.

By: Buck Steven