Behind the Duet: Lauren Alaina on Singing ‘What Ifs’ with Kane Brown

Country music has its fair share of iconic duets, but let’s be honest, Lauren Alaina and Kane Brown’s “What Ifs” is one of those songs that never fails to make you crank up the volume and belt it out like you’re auditioning for American Idol. From September 22–26, Lauren Alaina is co-hosting Backstage Country with Elaina Smith, and you’d better believe she’s giving us the backstory on how she ended up singing with Brown.   

Alaina and Brown go way back to middle school, in fact. (Imagine sharing a cafeteria with two future country stars.) So, when Brown needed the perfect female voice for a song that would eventually skyrocket him to superstardom, he immediately thought of his old friend with whom he sang in a choir when they were younger. Alaina revealed, “He called me one day and asked me to be a part of that song because the way it kind of unfolded is crazy. It was just a favor that I was doing for him when he wrote the song. I sang on the demo as a favor. The label liked my voice on it, so they kept me on it. So, the whole thing was just really random, how it came about. It was just very organic. I will never forget it.”  

The day she received the call from Brown, Alaina said she was on her way to a boxing gym: “I was on my way to a class when he called me and he said, ‘Hey, I just wrote this song. We want to put a female voice on it. Will you come and sing on the chorus for us, and maybe work on some other stuff in the bridge or the second verse or whatever you think would be cool?' So, I was like, ‘Well, I'm on my way to the gym, do you need me to do it right now?’ And he was like ‘Yeah, we're only gonna be here a little bit longer.’”  

She chuckled, “So, I canceled my workout and went and did this song on a random, ‘Hey, best workout I've ever skipped.’ Yeah, you never regret a workout. You did it. You only regret it once you skip. I do not regret skipping that one because [we] made a lot of money from skipping that one workout.”  

So, before you even think about texting your middle school friends with a “Wanna start a band?” Do yourself a favor, tune in to Backstage Country first. Lauren Alaina is spilling how she and Kane Brown kept their friendship alive all these years, and how it turned into a chart-topping duet.