Brantley Gilbert is opening up about his new son’s unexpected arrival. Gilbert was performing in Mississippi earlier this month when his wife Amber unexpectedly gave birth to the couple’s third child, Abram Howell Gilbert, while on his tour bus.
Fortunately, Gilbert was able to pause the show to witness the baby’s arrival, and then returned to finish his show.
“We were four songs into the set, and my tour manager comes up and pulls on my arm,” Gilbert recalls on Audacy’s Katie + Company, adding that he didn’t expect the news to be about his own family. “The first thing that came to mind is, ‘It’s a security threat.’ He looked at me, and he gave me a stern like, ‘Come on.’ He was like, ‘Baby.’ He mouthed ‘baby’ to me and when he did, I dropped the mic and everything and took off running.”
Gilbert, who shared highlights from the night on social media, says the delivery was surprisingly quick, especially once he got on the bus.
View this post on Instagram
“The minute I walked on the bus, I washed my hands really quick, and the minute I knelt beside her, her water broke,” Gilbert remembers. “I looked at the midwife, and she looked back at me, and I was just wide-eyed. She’s like, ‘We’re having a baby.’”
Gilbert and Amber, whom he wed in 2015, joked about her giving birth on the road, never imagining it would actually happen.
“We joked that if it happened during a show, I’ll just hop off stage, we’ll have it, and I’ll run back up there, and I’ll hold the baby up like ‘Lion King,’ like Simba… none of us thought that was actually going to happen.”
Gilbert was already in awe of his wife, but even more so now that she gave birth on his bus.
“[Amber] was a soldier – such an understatement,” Gilbert says, calling her the “strongest woman I’ve ever met.” “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. She was just so strong. I was such an emotional wreck, it was ridiculous. She handled it a million times better than I did.”
After the eventful birth, Gilbert praised Amber for the way she handled the entire experience.
“You hear during the entire pregnancy that when they get here, when you hold them for the first time, everything will set in,” Gilbert reflects. “It’s just this life-changing moment. And I was like, ‘All right, so I’ll write a song about that.’ But like against the advice of almost every man I know that said, ‘Don’t look down there. Don’t look,’ I watched everything. I mean, everything.
“And while it was beautiful, I gained so much respect for women,” he continues. “When they say women are tougher than men, they mean it. And it was an amazing thing to watch, and I’ll never forget it. But that being said, it’s not something to write a country song about. It’s just not.”
Gilbert has a hit single at radio now, with “Over When We’re Sober,” a duet with Ashley Cooke. Find all of Gilbert’s music and upcoming shows at BrantleyGilbert.com.
Photo Credit: Alexa Campbell