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 infamous 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 Chris Gaines thing 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 by 1972 During his early
years in school he would show an aptitude for music, much to the chagrin of his parents who
were professional swimmers. Gaines 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 some major success,
he would suffer personal tragedy after personal tragedy including losing his home in a fire,
losing his father and suffering a debilitating 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 and Garth Brooks would start portraying gains in his post-crash state.
But despite surviving this accident and on the brink of a major comeback
Gaines would end up dying under some fishy circumstances. Despite writing the extensive
backstory the film’s plot revolved around a superfan who was investigating Gaines death
thinking there’s was more than meets the eye. 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. And the
movie was originally 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 and the movie studio that they would issue a pre-soundtrack or pre-quel
as some would report 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 album even though his prior albums that the greatest hits were made from
were fictitious. Appearing on the album cover is a noticeably slimmer garth brooks as chris gaines
sporting a soul patch with 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 motion picture in order 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.
in a separate interview brooks would reveal how he developed the character stating
"I surrounded myself with people that knew what hip and cool was,", "since I don't."
MTV would report in early 1999 what the forthcoming album would sound like stating and
i quote “The 14 tracks on "In the Life" bridge the musical styles of the '80s and the '90s,
with influences ranging from the country-tinged John Mellencamp to the slightly more alternative
Paul Westerberg.” The resulting’s sound would range from r&b to pop and rock
and brooks voice is almost uncrecognizable."
Despite the fact that brooks took on the persona of Gaines he wrote
none of the songs as they were all written by Nashville writers according to the LA Times.
Don Was who produced the Gaines album and worked with the likes of the Rollings Stones
and Bob Dylan would tell the LA Times in 1999 “Yes, I think he’s going to lose some people in
cowboy hats--not for life; they just won’t want to hear him sing this stuff--and then
he’s going to get new fans,” “But this is a guy who likes going out on a limb.”
Brooks and his label made one thing clear this wasn’t a country album and Brooks
label capitol records never even sent the single lost in you to many country stations
getting a mixed reaction from places who had heavily supported garth brooks career. Despite not
being serviced with a single, there was a dilemma these stations faced. As billboard would state
and i quote “either play a pop song or ignore a superstar.” Some stations would tell the magazine
that some audiences appreciated the change in brooks music, while others felt betrayed.
Even Brooks own record label Capitol had some doubts about the whole thing with
Pat Quigley who was from their nashville branch telling the LA Times “There’s two
risky elements here,” s. “Can Garth succeed in the rock, pop and R&B;
world? And can you put out an advance soundtrack and succeed without the benefit of the movie
being in theaters? And that doesn’t even address the challenge of him acting.”
So how did Garth brooks fans feel? Well MTV would also interview The Missouri webmaster of fan site
planet Garth telling the network and id quote "Garth is too loyal to country music to cross
over himself," "[Neither] I, nor other Garth fans ... feel betrayed with the crossover.
It's more like an added bonus, but [I] hope it isn't a full-time gig." That was something brooks
was careful to tell his fanbase that this wasn’t a career change, but rather a temporary detour.
By 1999 Brooks was already being offered some pretty big roles in hollywood including
an offer to from producer Steven Speilberg to appear in the 1996 summer blockbuster Twister.
Speilberg also offered Brooks a role in the movie saving private ryan.
According to TMZ, one of Brooks former business partners a woman named Lisa Sanderson
would take the singer to court in 2013 claiming the country star had burnt bridges
and exhibited bad behavior that resulted in her losing large sums of money.
The court documents and filings revealed more about the Lamb movie as well as other movie
offers that Brooks turned down. According to the court documents Sanderson’s suit claimed Brooks
said no to Twister because he didn’t want to be overshadowed by visual effects, while he said
no to saving private ryan because he didn’t want to be overshadowed by tom hanks and matt damon.
The lawsuit also described a pretty bizarre pitch meeting for the lamb that Brooks had with
executives at Fox. According to abovethelaw.com the court documents would state and i quote
During a meeting at Fox, Brooks presented music that he had in mind for The Lamb.
Brooks stated that the music was especially important to him because the music expressed
many of the same feelings that Brooks felt when his father died, and then began weeping openly.
Sanderson was thunderstruck and nearly fell out of her chair during the meeting,
since she knew that Brooks’ father was alive and well in Oklahoma.
After the meeting, Sanderson confronted Brooks and told him she was stunned that he would lie
about his father dying. Brooks looked at Sanderson in the eye, chuckled and said,
“but don’t you think it made the pitch so much better?” the lawsuit would allege.
In order to promote the album NBC ran a special on
Chris Gaines with Brooks explaining the character and concept to the audience
and VH1 even did a whole behind the music episode on Gaines career. The VH1 special
would feature Billy Joel talking about gaines as if he’s a real person with a straight face.
Initially brooks didn’t want to appear in the film the Lamb, but Paramount pictures
pushed him to take a role even though he would only portray a post-crash Gaines..
Jeb Stuart who wrote the fugitive and die hard was reportedly linked to the project.
The plan according to the LA Times was for there to be a second collection of gaines
songs released to coincide with his film.. In fact brooks would claim in that he had
up to 4 albums worth of ideas for chris gaines, provided the movie was a success.
Then 2 months after the Chris Gaines record came out Garth brooks would host Saturday Night Live
and perform as the musical guest. Brooks would host as himself,
but appear as Chris gaines when performing musical numbers. Even one of the SNL cast
members tracy morgan would appear in a sketch with Brooks and poked fun at the whole thing.
THe clip is up on snl’s youtube channel if you want to check it out.
You’re probably wondering how did the Chris Gaines album do. Well it was fairly successful
peaking at number 2 on the album charts and it produced Garth Brooks only charting hit on the
pop charts with the single lost in you which peaked at number 5 on the hot 100 charts. It
would go on to sell 2 million copies, despite some in the press trampling all over the character and
the album. It would sell significantly less than brooks albums and a year would go by and
there was little info on the movie the Lamb. By 2002 it was still being reported that the
Lamb movie was still a go with CMT reporting and i quote Producers of The Lamb — a film about
Garth Brooks’ fictional rock star character Chris Gaines — hope to turn in the script to Paramount
Pictures by the end of the summer. Screenwriter Jeb Stuart (Die Hard, The Fugitive) is back on
the job after taking time off to be with his terminally ill wife, says co-producer
Lisa Sanderson of Red Strokes Entertainment. The lamb motion picture would never end up
being released and that lawsuit i had previously discussed would reveal the reason for the film
being ditched with court documents revealing that Brooks had issues over splitting publishing money
with the movie studio. Other sources pointed to the poor reception of the Chris Gaines character
and just confusion people had with the whole thing.
In 2015 brooks gave a radio interview where he was asked about the movie the lamb to which he
responded “I don’t think you’re ever going to get that [movie] at all,” “… All I can say is,
my ribs are still sore from getting the s**t kicked out of me for doing that one.”
Despite the hate he had no regrets adding “I love the music," he insisted, "and that's what it's all
about." "Would I ever drop that much weight again? I don't think I could" he'd say. As recently as
last year Brooks would reveal that more Chris Gaines music was coming. During a fan chat on
Facebook, Brooks was asked whether the in the life of chris gaines album would be reissued and he was
quoted as saying according to taste of country "i can't tell you anything, except that you're
going to have it in every frmat that you could possibly imagine. It's coming. You're going to
have Chris Gaines stuff,nobody has ever heard before iether. It's all coming. Ilove that
project so i'm excited he'd say. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.