Back in 1999, country music superstar Garth Brooks took an unexpected career turn and created a completely new alter-ego, a rock musician named Chris Gaines. Initially, this character was to star in a film titled, The Lamb. The project was to be produced by Brooks’ Red Strokes Entertainment in partnership with Paramount Pictures. Prior to the film’s expected release, an album was dropped and a fake documentary was made. The “mockumentary” was titled Behind The Life of Chris Gaines’ Life. Actors, along with real musicians, producers, and journalists became part of the experiment. Music producer, Don Was and journalist, Melinda Newman joined the project adding real-life legitimacy to the fake documentary. The album titled, Garth Brooks In…The Life of Chris Gaines was released a year before it was to become the sound track for the film. Unfortunately, the album didn’t cause much excitement and was considered flopped. As a result, the film was never made and the whole project was abandoned in 2002.
Watch a fake episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, which to give Gaines a backstory below! Although, this Chris Gaines push wasn’t a success— Brooks fully committed to his alter-ego.
By the way, if you miss Chris Gaines— you can still find him on MySpace.
Garth Brooks Ditches Chris Gaines and Returns to Country Music
The star quickly returned to country music with the album Scarecrow, which was released on November 13, 2001. According to the RIAA, Brooks is the best-selling solo albums artist in the United States with 148 million domestic units sold, second only to The Beatles in total album sales overall. Brooks is also one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 170 million records.
