After blowing up news-feeds worldwide, Paisley has found yet another way of stirring up some controversy while simultaneously rallying his fans to the ready by doing the unthinkable just weeks before the release of his new album Moonshine in the Trunk... sharing bootlegged tracks from the album on his social media without consulting with his record label first!

“I'm going rogue. The label doesn't know I'm doing this. Seriously. But I made a Moonshine Preview teaser. Don't tell,” posted Paisley on Saturday night with a link to the teaser attached.


Management probably thought they’d seen the worst of Paisley’s games
until Sunday night when Brad posted a screenshot of an email from corporate saying: “I saw last night’s
twitter & you have me howling. However I see you are going to do something else today & I think we should discuss first. The label has it’s launch plans & I think we should talk to them about this.” “Oops just tweeted his email,” posted Paisley, following up with several attempts to leak a new preview and a slew of text messages from his manager warning him, “Seriously don’t. Call me!” “Right. Don’t call you,” responded Paisley. Needless to say, fans loved the peek at the new album as well as the peek into Paisley’s personal life, and with this latest stunt as yet another example of the country star’s sense of humor and down-to-earth attitude, we here at The Hawk can say without a doubt that we will jump on board with whatever Paisley dishes out next, whether that means tuning into his show Rising Star on Sunday nights or purchasing Moonshine in the Trunk when it comes out in late August.

Brad’s Twitter antics are a prime example of the impressive impact social media has made in garnering fans’ attention as well as being a means of self-promotion, and as far as we’re concerned, when it comes to our favorite stars using their Twitter accounts to reach out, the more candid, the better.

For a while there we feared Brad might have been on the way out, set to be replaced by the likes of Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, but maybe we just mistook his hiatus from the lime light as an early, and very unlikely retirement when he was really just storing up energy to get his new show off the ground and finishing up his sure-to-be-a-hit album.

If you’re ready to join Brad Paisley on what’s sure to be a wild ride in these next few months, check out his ABC show Rising Star on Sunday nights at 8pm and mark your calendars for the release of Moonshine in the Trunk set for August 26th.

What do you think of Brad’s and other celebrities’ use of social media to connect with fans and promote their latest projects? And do you think old dogs like Brad (sorry, buddy!) can learn new tricks with Twitter and Facebook?

*Thanks to intern Sabrina for her help in writing about Brad

More From 98.1 The Hawk