The Real Reason Kane Brown Decided Not To Join The Military

Kane Brown has been smashing the country charts since he came onto the scene around five years ago. The Tennessee native is known for putting his own spin on country music, like adding in a bit of acoustic reggae in his single "Be Like That." His look also subverts the norm with his many tattoos and an eyebrow piercing, and he reports being asked frequently if he's a rapper, according to Rolling Stone. Growing up biracial in Tennessee, Brown is used to feeling like an outcast, however, and has learned to embrace it. "If you come to my shows, there's all kinds of different races, all kinds of different people," Brown told Rolling Stone in 2018. "Now, I feel accepted. I still feel like an outcast on the inside, but it doesn't bother me anymore, at all. It kind of feels cool to be the outsider."

In a 2020 interview with the Evening Standard, Brown echoed this sentiment of learning to embrace his individuality, stating that many people refer to his music as "pop country." Instead of letting it bother him, the "One Thing Right" singer has decided to "claim that title." He said, "Now I'm at a point where I can do my own thing. I don't push too hard to break no boundaries, but I do break boundaries."

Brown wasn't always counting on making it big as a country music star. In fact, he started out his adulthood with a very different path ahead of him —one that included joining the military.

When Kane Brown was a teenager attending Chattanooga High School in Tennessee, he initially hoped for a future career as an athlete, and for good reason. Not only had he been playing sports since the tender age of 3, he really made a name for himself in high school, as he was the "quarterback of the football team ... captain of the basketball team," and was the baseball team's pitcher, according to a 2018 interview with People. The country music artist was confident he would land a sports scholarship to a university, telling the publication that he "was always one of the best players on the team." When scholarship season came and went and Brown came up empty-handed, he changed course, determined to join the Army alongside a bunch of his school buddies. 

It would turn out that becoming a military man was not in Brown's cards either, due to one of the U.S. military's strict rules: no tattoos. The "What Ifs" singer relayed the experience to People. "I ended up doing my test and I was about to get sent off," he said. "They told me I had to get my tattoos removed first." According to Brown, his reaction was a firm "Hell no!" This was an understandable response given the country singer's penchant for tattoos. According to Taste of Country, Brown sports a number of visible tats, including a wolf on one arm and angel wings spread on his shoulders and the tops of his arms.

Since the Army was a no-go, Kane Brown was faced with the task of finding another suitable career. However, music still "wasn't even an option," he told People. Instead, he joined FedEx and posted cover songs to YouTube in his spare time. Fortunately, the young artist had a supportive boss who encouraged him to pursue his music full time. In a 2016 interview with Billboard, Brown detailed what happened next. He decided to give reality singing shows a chance, first starting with "American Idol." He was immediately rejected. "The X Factor" was another disappointing dead end, given that they wanted the "Heaven" artist to join a boy band. Soon enough, he "quit" this route and went back to recording cover songs and a few of his own originals, which he posted online.

It would appear that Facebook was Brown's ticket to gaining the recognition he deserved, according to The Netline. In 2015, his songs started raking in millions of views, including the single that finally put him on the major record companies' radars: "Used to Love You Sober." A bidding war led to Brown signing with RCA Nashville in 2016. Brown's resulting fame includes two studio albums, three EPs, a couple dozen music videos, and over a dozen singles. He has also won prestigious awards, including Favorite Male Country Artist at the 2019 American Music Awards, per Country Now.