Like many artists on the road, Kane Brown loves to spend his downtime playing video games. But unlike most, the country singer takes it very, very seriously. Sure, it’s a great way for him to stay connected with friends back home, but the true reason is simpler: he just hates to lose.
“I’m super competitive,” Brown tells Rolling Stone. “I’m just always competing and always talking shit.”
Brown has a long history with gaming, specifically shooters like SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs, a personal favorite from late 2000s. But these days, the musician is all-in on the world’s biggest first-person shooter, Call of Duty. And despite being at the tail end of his In the Air tour, nothing will prevent him from getting his COD fix, especially with the latest entry in the franchises, Black Ops 6, coming out Oct. 25.
On tour, Brown has a PC setup for playing Call of Duty, but it’s a little more extravagant than a basic rig. Although he used to play on Xbox or a laptop, the musician now has a powerhouse custom unit that can achieve the high performance he expects, while also feeling like a piece of spy tech pulled straight from the game itself.
Brown’s custom PC rig folds up to travel on his tour bus
Courtesy of Kane Brown
“I actually make everybody jealous,” he says. “I have a table that looks like a beer pong table, but it’s black. [It] has a built-in desktop. So, it folds out and then there’s two monitors that come up behind it. I used to have to play on a laptop, and I’d get like 60 frames [per second], and now I’m around like 240.”
Amid the busy tour schedule, Brown has made his way to Washington D.C. for Call of Duty NEXT, the biggest annual event for the series where all the major details of the new game are revealed. But the musician isn’t just there to peep the game, he’s ready to play. He does — all night, in fact.
Meeting with streamers and friends at the lobby bar of the Watergate Hotel (yes, the Watergate), Brown’s introduced to a group of U.S. Marines with whom he’ll be playing in the Call of Duty Endowment Bowl, but that’s still a day away. Catching wind of some demo stations in the lower level of the hotel, the musician sneaks in to play with the Marines until the wee hours of the morning.
The C.O.D.E. Bowl V Presented by USAA is the latest tournament specifically for U.S. military veterans and is part of larger initiative by Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard to help veterans find meaningful employment. Since 2009, it’s helped place over 130 thousand veterans in careers that match their skills. This year, Brown is the guest of honor and competing alongside the vets. It’s a cause that’s essential to the musician, who regularly dedicates his hit song, “Homesick,” to veterans at his shows.
“I’m glad that I’m here, I love veterans, he tells Rolling Stone at the event. “What’s sad, [what] I run into a lot is veterans that are on the side of the road. For them to go and fight for our country and then be homeless? They’re asking for money. To me, that’s the saddest thing I could possibly see. So, this is an awesome foundation.”
A huge fan of streaming, Brown has taken to Twitch to livestream his own Call of Duty gameplay in recent years and sees the potential for veterans to take advantage of the medium as a viable career path.
“I think the hardest part would be getting set up,” he says. “But, if you do get yourself set up, that could be your job. I got a friend online who streams, and he was in the military. Goes by Sergeant Jackson. He streams seven hours a day.”
Kane Brown competing at Call of Duty NEXT
Martha Earls
Although you’d expect an artist of Brown’s caliber to be the center of attention at any event, at Call of Duty NEXT, he’s actually the fan coming to see his favorite streamers. He even admits to being starstruck by creators like TacticalGramma. Among other passionate gamers, the musician feels at home, surprisingly more so than he does on stage.
“I feel like I’m more in my element in here than music because I’m such a big gamer,” he says.
Forever a competitor, Brown is unafraid to challenge the Call of Duty pros, but he also has plenty of other mainstream celebrities in his sights like NBA stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. He notes that although other artists play regularly, it’s the athletes who bring it the most.
“I’ve seen a lot of athletes that are loving Call of Duty right now,” he says. “I play with Sean O’Malley, [who] is a UFC fighter. He’s really into it, really competitive. We just did a kill race the other day.”
“I won, of course.”