There are probably as many different roads to country music stardom as there are country singers. But Jon Brennan's was certainly off the beaten path.
His road took him through MTV.That's right. The cable channel full of hard rock, heavy metal and rap has helped turn Brennan into a budding country music star.
Brennan, you see, was one of the stars during the second season of MTV's "The Real World." He was one of seven very different people chosen to live in a Venice Beach, Calif., house and have virtually every minute of their lives taped for five months, then turned into one of MTV's most popular programs.
"Today in the (music) business, you have to be unique," Brennan said in a telephone interview from his home in Kentucky. "You have to be different from everyone else.
"There's not going to be another country singer on MTV's `Real World.' Up to this point, I've been the only country music singer or personality on MTV altogether. I doubt they'll ever have another one.
"It's very unique in that this is not the normal path to country."
For Brennan, though, it's been a shortcut. He's only 20, and he's already had more exposure than most country singers twice his age.
He's still looking to sign a recording contract, but he's currently on tour. Brennan and the country group Shenandoah make a stop in Utah on Monday, Nov. 14, at the University of Utah's Huntsman Center. Tickets are $14.50 and are available at the Huntsman Center and at the door.
"The Real World" may have been a shortcut, but it wasn't a smooth path.
"To be honest, the only reason I did the MTV thing was to get the exposure to do what I'm doing now," Brennan said. "I really had no desire to be part of MTV or anything, I just saw the chance to get some exposure."
And the experience doesn't rank up there among the best of his life. Brennan, then only 18, found himself in a world quite unlike the one he left behind in Kentucky.
A young man of strong convictions, Brennan showed a great deal of character by standing up for what he believed in - his religion, his disdain for drugs and alcohol, and his convictions against premarital sex.
And he stuck to his principles despite being ridiculed by some of his roommates. (Among those roommates there was more than a little drinking and sex, the decision by one woman to have an abortion and the revelation by another that she is a lesbian.)
But Brennan said he didn't find it difficult to stand up for what he believes in "because that's just the way I was raised."
"I had made up my mind when I went out there that no one was going to change me and that I was going to hold true to who I was," he said. "So it wasn't all that hard.
"I'm not going to say that I didn't take ridicule for it, but it wasn't all that hard."
Brennan admits that he did, however, sometimes question whether putting up with everything going on around him - let alone having it all captured on videotape - was worth it.
"There were times when I started wondering: Was this really worth it?" he said. "Because I just didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy L.A. I didn't enjoy the people I was with. I didn't enjoy the circumstances altogether.
"But it paid off 10 times more than I thought it would."
Both MTV and Brennan's roommates seemed to go out of their way to categorize Jon as a country hick of sorts.
"The one thing I can't stand is to be condescended to," Brennan said. "And that's just the general attitude I got from people in L.A. when I said I wasn't from there.
"I'd say, `I live in Kentucky,' and they'd immediately judge me, even though they didn't know me. I feel I gave it a fair chance, but I wasn't given a fair chance."
But Brennan thinks he got more out of his time in California than just the added exposure.
"It made me realize how other people are. And I think it opened my eyes," he said.
Despite the impression left by MTV's "Real World," Brennan did not spend his entire life growing up in small-town Kentucky. He was born in Wisconsin and lived in Arizona and Maryland before moving to Kentucky.
"The show kind of made me out to be this sheltered boy from Kentucky who'd never left home," he said. "That was just one of many misimpressions the show gave the viewers."
Brennan himself provided a big surprise for his roommates the first time he performed with them in the audience. Off stage, he looks like a nice young kid who drank a lot of Kool-Aid and watched a lot of TV.
But when he got up on stage, both his voice and his presence left at least a few of the roommates gasping.
"My mom will tell me, `When you're not decked out in your performing clothes, you look like just an average, everyday, smart-mouth kid. You don't look the part when you're not on stage,' " Brennan said. "Living with me in the house, they see all different sides of me, and they'd never seen that side of me. I was hoping that I'd shock them a little bit."
A year and a half after he left his roommates behind, the effects still linger - due in large part, no doubt, to the fact that MTV consistently repeats the episodes that featured Brennan. He's recognized frequently in public.
"Around here, I'm just known as the MTV kid," Brennan said.
Sometimes that recognition can get carried a little bit too far.
"I've got a lot of mothers who call me and say, `I've got the perfect daughter for you.' They don't understand that, not only do they have to like me, but I have to like them back," Brennan said with a laugh.
And, in addition to his burgeoning country music career, he'll soon be back on MTV again.
"They're trying to get some type of reunion together," Brennan said. "But, again, not because I want to see the people or be on MTV but just to get the exposure all over again. It sounds terrible, but that's the truth."