Kane Brown is getting candid this holiday season about dealing with depression and anxiety as an artist.
Brown told Kelleigh Bannen for the year-end episode of Today’s Country Radio on Apple Music Country that “it’s hard for an artist to go through depression because, for us, we have to be on our A-game 24/7.”
“If we’re out pumping gas and a fan comes up, and I’m just having one of those bad days, I have to put on a smile, and there’s no off time,” he explained. “So it gets a little rough for us because if you have a bad day, they’re going to leave and they’re going to be like, ’Oh, Kane Brown’s a (jerk).’”
The pressures of living in the public eye inspired his song “Memory” with blackbear.
“Just saying for everybody that goes through depression or anxiety, you’re not alone,” he said. “There’s many people out there. You just got to find them and talk to them. So that was kind of me; that was my way of saying, ’I go through it as well. You’re not alone in the world.’”
Brown built his career on his frequent out-of-genre collaborations and explained he “wants to be an artist that does everything.” However, he said country music will always be part of his mix.
“A lot of artists, they’ll use country music, and then they’ll kind of branch off and do their own thing,” he said. “It’s like they just use the genre of country music just to be in the industry, and then they just completely abandon it. I told myself I’d never do that. We were very nervous at first coming in and trying to do a pop collab because we didn’t know how they were going to react to it and just kind of kick me out of the genre. I always told them that I would always be loyal to country music because they got me started.”
The singer will have a little bit of everything on his new album – although he won’t say when it will be released.
“I will say I pushed it back literally the other day,” Brown said. “And… none of (the songs) sound the same, which is another thing that I’ve been thinking about because I tried to go the old school route, but then I got too old school… I like different music.”
Brown said one of his new songs, “The Devil Don’t Even Bother,” begins with a 1980s vibe and flips to contemporary country by the chorus. Another song, he said, is “just super Motown” with “a bunch of strings.” The “Go Around,” which he predicted will be his next release, is rock with heavy guitars.
He plans to release songs once a month leading up to his new album.