“I Felt Like the Scum of the Earth”: Kane Brown Opens Up About His Depression While Discussing Emotional New Song, ‘Haunted’

Kane Brown has never shied away from difficult themes when it comes to his songwriting, but on his new album, The High Road, it feels like he's delving deeper than ever before.

Epitomising this is Brown's visceral and strikingly vulnerable duet with Jelly Roll, ‘Haunted’, which has emerged as an early fan-favourite after the project's release last Friday. It finds both artists candidly trading verses about their struggles with depression.

In a new Instagram video, Kane Brown has movingly opened up about his experiences with this, with the ‘Heaven’ hitmaker getting real with fans about his mental health troubles.

In the clip, Brown addresses his followers directly, “What's up, guys. So I've been talking about songs and how they got written and I just wanted to tell you this next one I'm gonna talk about, I've talked about it, but not personally to you guys: ‘Haunted’”.

He expands, “Anybody that's going through depression, man, it is not a joke, and if you don't understand depression or went through it before, you're not going to. When I tell you I have felt like this since 2019, I feel like a weight has been lifted off me”.

The ‘Miles On It’ singer-songwriter then revealed to fans that he's stopped using nicotine, after learning more about its impact on his mental wellbeing, “I'm not gonna lie to you, I am 29 days off of nicotine - I did not know that it suppressed emotions”.

Heartbreakingly, Kane Brown then got frank with followers about how he's been dogged by a lack of self-esteem for over five years, before thankfully underlining that he's now in a better place than ever, “I felt like the scum of the earth since 2019 - and now I am so happy, I am so excited for this journey that I'm about to go on. I've got the old KB back, baby! Thank you, guys. I'm just happy, man”.

Brown expressed his gratitude to everyone who's been championing him throughout his career, “I want to say thank y'all for the support that y'all have given me for nine to ten years, love y'all so much. Everybody that's worked for me, worked with me, writers, labels, radio, fans - God bless y'all, man. I love y'all so much, and I'm proud to say I'm back. I am back. I'm gonna tear up, but God bless y'all, man”.

Kane Brown concluded the touching message by looking ahead to a stacked 2025, during which the genre-blending trailblazer will embark on his keenly anticipated The High Road tour, “It's gonna be a hell of a year, I can't wait to see y'all on the road, and like I said, thank you for supporting my new album. Y'all are the bomb”.

It's never easy having a conversation about one's mental health, so for Kane Brown to be this open with fans is a testament to his commitment to being as honest as possible with his listeners. We're just glad the ‘I Can Feel It’ chart-topper is now so much happier and content, after tussling with depression for the past few years.

Kane Brown's sincerity will hopefully give fans that are contending with similar issues a sense of solidarity and comfort, knowing that even someone that has achieved the levels of success and fame that Brown has is not immune to mental health challenges.

Ahead of its release, he ‘Backseat Driver’ crooner sat down with Holler to reflect on how he wrote ‘Haunted’ while staying in a particularly eerie location in the UK, “I was in Manchester at the Stock Exchange Hotel - the craziest hotel I've ever been to with very big rooms like a bank vault, because the whole thing used to be a bank. They give you a key right when you check in, and if you have the bank vault room, you have your own secret entrance, which was really cool...”

Brown went on, “But anyway, I thought it felt haunted, so when I was with my writers in the room we automatically had a title...It's about depression, and you know, no matter how much money you make, no matter what you go through in life, if you go through depression, you do kind of feel haunted because you can't escape it...You have to kind of find your way out of being depressed. So we just went to our darkest and deepest parts of our minds and wrote this dark, beautiful song”.

During his interview with Holler, Kane Brown shed light on the poignant experience of writing the album finale, ‘When You Forget’, about his grandpa's battle with Alzheimer's, as well as hinting that there might be another record on the horizon.

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