Today (January 24), Kane Brown released his highly-anticipated new album The High Road. Additionally, he released “Haunted,” his collaboration with Jelly Roll as the album’s focus track, and shared the video for the song. With its themes of mental illness and suicidal thoughts, the “Save Me” singer was the perfect artist to add to the track. However, that almost didn’t happen. Jelly Roll admitted to hating Brown before they recorded the song.

Recently, Brown sat down with Taste of Country to talk about his new album, his life, and more. During the conversation, he revealed that he had heard of Jelly Roll before he came into country music and that the “I am Not Okay” singer didn’t like him.

Jelly Roll “Hated” Kane Brown Before They Talked Things Out

“I knew of him before he ever got into the country industry because I was hanging out with—I won’t say his name but—some other guys that are in the same world that Jelly was in,” Kane Brown recalled. “So, I remember whenever he came on the scene I was like, ‘That’s cool,’ because it was kind of like we had the same kind of background. Then, we never talked when he was in town,” he added.

Later, Brown spoke to their mutual friend and Jelly’s frequent collaborator Taylor Phillips why they never spoke. “He’ll tell you this, he hated me,” Brown said. Despite being a major star, the “Miles on It” singer is a “quiet guy” behind the scenes. He’s not the type of person who will strike up a conversation with someone he doesn’t know. This led Jelly to form an unfair opinion of him.

“Taylor told him, ‘No man, you don’t know him. He’s just really quiet.’ Taylor told me the story so I ended up reaching out to Jelly. I was like, ‘Hey buddy, this industry is crazy.’ I had heard some interview he did and I was like, ‘If you ever need to sit down and talk to me or play CoD,’ I play a lot of Call of Duty. I said, ‘You can come and talk to me about it,’” Brown recalled.

“We ended up playing Call of Duty and hitting it off and basically just texting all the time, random FaceTimes at 3 AM, and I wrote this song and thought of him.”

Jelly Wasn’t Shy About His Feelings for Brown

Jelly Roll is not afraid to admit when he’s wrong. He proved that while shooting the music video for “Haunted” in front of Kane Brown and his entire team. “The funny thing is, the other day we were shooting the music video,” he recalled. With cameras rolling and Brown’s entire team on the set, Jelly said, “I used to f**kin’ hate this dude. Now I love this dude.”

“Jelly’s such a good guy, man and I love him and I’m proud of his success. He amplified this song and I’m glad he’s on it,” Brown added.