Garth Brooks: The bizarre story of his alter ego Chris Gaines
0:00 – Introduction
1:33 – Chris Gaines Backstory
4:38 – Country Fans’ Reactions
6:10 – Brooks Hollywood Projects/Movie
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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people’s accounts, so I don’t guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.
I’ve covered artists who have changed their persona, taken alter egos or straight up changed their musical style. Every time I’ve done a story on those topics people always comment on the Garth Brooks Chris Gaines story so I thought let’s talk about in today’s video.
I think the LA Times probably summed it up best in a 1999 piece they did on Garth Brooks that echoed a lot of what people and the media thought about the whole career move stating
“Garth Brooks has some explaining to do. What’s this about country music’s biggest name putting out a pop album? And starring in a movie?” they’d write. Meanwhile the orlando sentinel had a more sensationalist headline that read “GOOD GOD, GARTH GOES GOTH”
By 1999 Garth Brooks had been dominating the country charts for the whole decade selling over 100 million albums. In fact he was the most successful solo artist in US history, but in 1999 his career took a strange turn. Deciding to take a break from country music. Brooks had come up with a screenplay and a detailed storyline for an alter ego named Chris Gaines. The idea was the brainchild of Brooks & his production company Red Strokes Entertainment and Paramount Pictures. The name given to this film was ‘The Lamb’ That wasn’t the only big career move Brooks made that year as the country singer had a short stint as a baseball plater joining the san diego padres for spring training, but much like baba booey would say it was a bit of a stumble.
The script and backstory that Garth Brooks had developed for Chris Gaines was super detailed.
To summarize Gaines would be born in Australia in 1967 and move to America at age 5. During his early years in school he would show an aptitude for music, much to the chagrin of his parents who were professional swimmers. Gains first band would Crush an outfit he started in high school and the group had some success, but tragedy struck when the band’s frontman died in a plane crash.As a result Gaines pursued a solo career. Despite having success as a t Gaines would suffer personal tragedy losing his home in a fire, losing his father and suffering from sex addiction while also having his money stolen by greedy music business people. After a life threatening car accident Gaines would require extensive facial surgery. Brooks would start portraying gains in his post-crash state. But despite surviving this accident and on the brink of a comeback Gaines would end up dying under some fishy circumstances. Despite writing this extensive backstory the film’s plot revolved around a superfan investigating Gaines death thinking there’s a cover up. The film was supposed to cover his 15 year long career and Brooks would only appear in the film in concert scenes and during interviews. The movie was planned to be released in the summer of 2000. Pretty crazy story right?
Since movie’s are expensive endeavours and may not find an audience it was decided by Brooks and his record label that they would issue a pre-soundtrack or pre-quel to the movie almost a year ahead of the film’s release in September of 1999. The resulting album would be called Garth Brooks In the LIfe of Chris Gaines. It’s also referred to as greatest hits (even though his prior albums that the greatest hits were fictitious.). Appearing on the album cover is a noticeably slimmer garth brooks as chris gaines sporting a soul patch with his hair and makeup done by artist lance anderson who worked on the Marlin brando val kilmer film the island of dre. Moreau according to cnn
The idea was to release the album ahead of the lamb coming out to build the audiences relationship and familiarity with Gaines. Brooks would tell the LA TImes “We want people to go into the theater and know Chris Gaines and care about Chris Gaines,”. “The thing I’d like to get across is how serious we are about this. There’s the Rutles and there’s Spinal Tap, and this is exactly the oppo
Sources:
MTV News
https://www.theringer.com/music/2021/11/29/22806964/garth-brooks-revisited-chris-gaines
http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Music/9909/30/garth.brooks/
http://www.cmt.com/news/1453779/writer-returns-to-work-on-brooks-the-lamb/
https://tasteofcountry.com/garth-brooks-chris-gaines-new-music-2021/
source