OFFSTAGE: Brad Paisley Gets African Spear in Return for Cow

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

It took WYCD/Detroit’s Steve Grunwald about 17 hours — and a lot of Brad Paisley‘s own money — to fly to Nairobi, Kenya. And then once he got there, he drove five hours south to give the chief of the Maasai tribe a cow that Paisley bought for them
. (He also gave him three other cows, gifts from Rascal Flatts.) “There are all these little towns in Kenya, and you can buy anything you want, every day. So I bought the four cows. They start at around $450 and go up to about $1,000,” Grunwald told me Tuesday morning (Oct. 16). “And they knew I was coming with the cows. So the tribe waited by the side of the road for me for a couple of days.” Grunwald also brought the tribe some Detroit hats, flashlights and some Paisley T-shirts. He even brought them some new Paisley music to listen to on their battery-operated CD player. “They have no running water. No electricity. And they lose cattle to animals — like lions — all the time. It’s a rough life,” he said. But even so, the tribe was so grateful, they gave Grunwald handmade gifts to bring back to America. Like a drum made with animal skin, bracelets and a spear made just for Paisley.