An Early-Career ‘Fatal Error’ Lost Him Tons of Fans

During a lengthy sit-down on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Luke Bryan looked back at a decade-old controversy that he says lost him a whole cross-section of country fans — for good.

The whole thing went down back in 2015, when Bryan gave an interview to HIITS Daily Double, which included a question about the “bro-country” movement — a trend in country music that launched in part due to Bryan’s hit “Country Girl (Shake It For Me).”

In his answer, Bryan said it wasn’t that he didn’t like music from outlaw country artists like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings — he simply was releasing songs that were authentic to him.

“I’m not an outlaw country singer. I don’t do cocaine and run around. So I’m not going to sing outlaw country,” his answer reads in part. “I like to hunt, fish, ride around on my farm, build a big bonfire and drink some beers — and that’s what I sing about. It’s what I know. I don’t know about laying in the gutter, strung out on drugs. I don’t really want to do that.”

That conversation incurred some backlash for Bryan, especially from fans and family members of the artists he named due to his apparent implication that they did nothing but lay around in the street getting high.

But now, speaking to Joe Rogan, Bryan blames the incident on a misunderstanding, poor word choice and a skewed interpretation from a writer hunting a salacious story. “I made one fatal error,” he says, pointing to the part of the quote where he spoke about “laying in the gutter, strung out on drugs.”

“Where I f–ked up is, [I meant to say], like Johnny Cash‘s song ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down.’ That’s what I meant. I just didn’t tie it,” Bryan reflects (elsewhere in the conversation, he also acknowledged that Kris Kristofferson wrote the song.) “Well, that dude took the article and said, ‘Luke Bryan says outlaw country people are basically drug addicts who sleep in the street.'”

Bryan says he issued personal apologies to Jennings’ daughter, as well as his widow Jessi Colter. He also texted Nelson to apologize, and he says Nelson replied, “It’s okay to step on your d–k, just don’t stand on it.”

Though the people close to the outlaw legends he named were forgiving, Bryan says the damage was done when it came to outlaw-leaning fans.

“Man, the way they manipulated that story, I lost that whole crowd right then. Broke my heart,” he admits. “…I had motorcycle gangs wanting to burn my house down.”

“Country Girl” had come out in 2011 — four years prior — and the song, with its up-tempo groove and signature hip-shaking dance moves, already had mixed reviews from fans. Still, Bryan says that “no one hated my a–” until that HIITS Daily Double story came out.

“Since then, I can always tell that if it [wasn’t for] that one little thing, I probably would have kept that whole base,” he comments.

Elsewhere on the podcast, Bryan opens up about his love of hunting and fishing and talks about his new album, Mind of a Country Boy, which arrived in late September.