Brantley Gilbert’s career skyrocketed with the bro-country movement of the 2010s and he has said that his manager has played a pivotal role in helping him make some big life decisions.
Brantley Gilbert’s manager is Aaron Keiser. Keiser helped him to make big decisions like buying a house in his home town to get the attention of his high school sweetheart. He also encouraged Gilbert to stay in rehab in 2011 and supported him on his journey to sobriety.
Scroll down to read more about how Aaron Keiser helped Brantley Gilbert with building his house, supported him through rehab, and mourned with Brantley over the loss of crew member Alan Ditch.
Brantley Gilbert’s First Home
From his high school days, Brantley Gilbert seemed to have eyes for only one girl, Amber Cochrane. The two dated on-and-off throughout high school and even a bit when he became a well-known country artist.
However, it seemed like things were over when Brantley started dating and then became engaged to Jana Kramer in 2013. The engagement only lasted eight months before the two split.
After that, Gilbert knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his one-time girlfriend, Amber. He struggled with coming up with an idea of how to get her attention.
When a land plot only three minutes from her mother’s house became available for purchase, Brantley hatched up a plan with Keiser to grab the attention of Amber.
He had wanted to buy the lot for a long time and build a nice big house on it. They came up with the idea of building the big house right next to the road so that Amber couldn’t miss it every time she drove by.
The plan worked because the two became engaged and married in their small town in June of 2015.
You can watch Brantley Gilbert talking about Amber and her mom’s influence on the song ‘Bad Boy’ in the below video from Taste of Country.
Gilbert’s Struggles With Addiction
In 2011, right as Brantley Gilbert’s career was exploding in the country music scene, he was admitted to the hospital for pancreatitis. His pancreatitis was due to his long struggle with alcohol and prescription drug abuse.
The doctor’s told Gilbert that he had two choices. They were to either check into rehab and take back his life by getting off of the drugs or continuing down the same path which would lead to his death.
He chose to check into rehab with the full support of family, friends, and Aaron Keiser. Gilbert was at the rehab center Cumberland Heights for only three days when he wanted to check out because he no longer had to crawl across the floor to shower in the morning.
As The Tennessean reported, Brantley Gilbert told his rehab counselors and Keiser that he was leaving. They told him to stay one more day and then arranged a meeting with someone who may have been able to help him see the light.
That person was another country music star who is arguably one of the most famous country stars of all time and someone who went through a very public rehabilitation process. Brantley Gilbert found himself sitting across from Keith Urban.
Although reluctant to open up at first, Gilbert eventually shared his fears of being unable to write music once sobering up. And this meeting was all due to Keiser’s support in getting him sober.
He even told People that he called up Aaron to say “Hey man are they pouring concrete for my house today? Tell them to stop. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to afford this house. I don’t know if I can play a show. Just the thought of being on an airplane is freaking me out.”
Brantly Gilbert’s Team Loses a Member
Brantley Gilbert clearly cares a lot about those who surround him and work with him. In August of 2019, he canceled his show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania seemingly out of nowhere.
At first, fans were very upset until they found out that one of Gilbert’s longtime crew members had suffered a heart attack during the concert set up. Alan Ditch was the crew member who went into cardiac arrest and then passed away within two hours of the event.
Ditch had been Brantley Gilbert’s monitor engineer and had worked with Gilbert for over eight years. The show was rescheduled to give everyone time to mourn the loss of their coworker.