Brantley Gilbert was born in the small town of Jefferson, Georgia, just outside of Athens. He grew up listening to country music, but he also listened to a lot of Athens rock bands like R.E.M. and the B-52's, plus the swaggering Southern rock of bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was a near-fatal car accident when he was 19 years old that inspired him to give music his all, and he started writing songs, playing mostly solo acoustic gigs before forming a band that could bring his vision of a hard-stomping country/rock/soul show to fruition.