8 Musicians With Bizarre (And Fascinating) Alter Egos

2. Garth Brooks Briefly Went Emo

Garth Brooks' phenomenal success can't be denied €“ he's sold over seventy million albums in the United States alone. Brooks plays primarily country music, and clearly has a ridiculously huge fan base, even if his music is staggeringly bland. Clearly growing tired of his own canned sound, in 1999 Brooks decided to radically reinvent himself as Chris Gaines. The Gaines alter ego was originally created to appear in a film called The Lamb, but the film never happened, and so Brooks was left with a fictional Australian rock star persona (who was apparently leading an emotionally conflicted life). Throughout Gaines brief career, he appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Life, appeared in a mockumentary for VH1 and even released an album of greatest hits (a move that may have been considered quite funny if not for its poor critical reception). In the end, Gaines was considered a massive failure, and appears to have vanished forever.