Meet the country songwriter, dubbed as the ‘Chiefs guy’, behind viral KC parody videos
His image on the screen, wearing a red and gold jacket and knit cap with a big arrowhead on it, gives him away.
Yeah, Blane Howard’s a Chiefs fan. Born into it and never shy to represent.
But there’s more to the man whose face regularly appears on social media during the NFL playoffs and even week-to-week this past football season. A guitar tucked under his right arm, Howard’s also a full-time country singer/songwriter.
For five years now, Howard, 36 — who lives in Nashville — has merged these two loves and created a social media presence of parodies sung to popular songs that have racked up millions of views on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.
Think John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” or Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” Even “Blue Christmas” and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” All infused with Howard’s own words about his team in red.
Like this one Howard wrote during last year’s Super Bowl winning season. It’s been viewed 4.9 million times on Instagram alone. For full impact, try singing the lyrics to Brooks & Dunn’s song, “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.”
“Out in the country on the Missouri side, well there’s a team that plays near the state line,” Howard sings. “The fans start screaming every time that Mahomes runs out. They got Kelce and Bolton ready to go, it’s where they win Super Bowls, oh in Kansas City.”
His 60 to 90-second parodies, which take Howard between 30 to 60 minutes to write and record, have lured thousands of new followers to the singer’s platforms and given die-hard fans a little something extra to smile about, even when it’s not easy. Say, after a loss to an AFC West opponent or after watching a struggling offensive line allow quarterback Patrick Mahomes to be sacked, over and over.
“It’s all for fun,” Howard says. “They’re supposed to be lighthearted, and they’re supposed to get people excited for the next game.”
Or, sometimes, if it so happens, even rile up a few rival fan bases. Say the Cincinnati Bengals, the Denver Broncos or the Buffalo Bills.
“I look forward to these every week,” one local fan wrote after Howard posted a parody regarding the Chiefs first loss this season. To the Buffalo Bills, no less.
Added another: “Great positive spin on a tough day in the Kingdom.”
Even a Buffalo fan got in on the commenting action, saying “It was a great, edge-of-your-seat game played by both teams, but my boys got the BIG DUB in the end. See you in January! Keep singing and GO BILLS!”
What Howard likes best is taking an original line from a song and “somehow barely tweaking it to make it fit the Chiefs perfectly.”
“I’m a songwriter,” Howard said. “That’s the fun part for me, like, ‘Oh man, I like that.’ Whether people catch it or not, that’s what makes it fun for me.”
He points to earlier this month and his parody of Jo Dee Messina’s song, “Bye Bye” where he sang about the Chiefs getting a bye week as the playoffs begin.
“Her chorus is, ‘I’ve tried all I can imagine. I begged and pleaded in true lovers fashion,” Howard said. “Well, I changed to, ‘We’re three-peatin’ in historic fashion.’ Like that fits so well in the line.”
What started with one video during the 2019 playoffs, to mark his first trip to Arrowhead Stadium, has evolved into a catalog of dozens of parodies, three original songs about his favorite team and a growing fan base where country music lovers mesh with dedicated Chiefs fans.
Nate and Clarissa Morrow, both lifelong Chiefs fans, met Howard back in 2019 and they’ve all become friends. They’ve watched his popularity grow and have invited him to their tailgate in Lot J, which has a massive following. When Howard’s in St. Joseph, he stays with the Morrows.
“Blane has become a big part of Chiefs Kingdom,” said Nate Morrow, who has only missed one home Chiefs game in 12 years. “All these parodies and songs really come from his heart.”
“They’re fun,” added Clarissa, who particularly loved the recent one about the bye week because “I love 90s country, that’s what I grew up on.“ Howard’s parody, she said, “made me smile.”
Video views alone don’t rake in a ton of money for Howard, but when there’s heavy traffic and parodies go viral, he can bring in an extra $1,000 or so a month, he said. At least five parodies this year alone have been viewed more than 1 million times each on social media.
“I was hoping that people would kind of like the videos and go watch my other stuff,” Howard said. “I didn’t think I’d be known as like, ‘The Chiefs’ guy.’”
But he’s loving every minute of it.
‘My own little version’
Growing up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Howard didn’t see many Chiefs fans. Most people in those parts would follow the Cowboys, because Dallas was a bit closer and those games were typically on TV each week.
But Howard cheered for the red and gold since he was a little boy spending time with his grandpa in Fort Scott, Kansas — where Howard was born and his family left when he was two or three — a town 95 miles south of Kansas City.
“Anytime I went back to Kansas to visit,” he said, “my grandpa had the Chiefs on. He didn’t miss a game.”
Grandpa favored the late quarterback Len Dawson, and “loved it when Joe Montana came,” Howard said. But for his grandson, it was nothing but No. 88 growing up.
“Tony Gonzalez is the guy who really, really hooked me in the 90s when I was 5 or 6-years-old,” Howard said. “I thought it was so cool that he would dunk the ball over the goal post. Like that was the coolest thing in the world to me.”
Howard’s love of the Chiefs only grew. So did his passion for music.
“When I was 4-years-old, I would tell people I was going to be Alan Jackson when I grew up,” Howard said. “So it’s been, you know, pretty much my entire life.”
After graduating from Belmont University in Nashville with a music degree, Howard eventually made a career as a singer/songwriter. Never thinking, when he first started out, that he would one day fuse music with his love of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Not until early 2019.
He’d never been to a home Chiefs game, and when he got the chance, he made the most of it. That included writing a short song.
“Hey y’all, it’s Blane Howard,” he said on the video posted before the 2019 game. “I have been a Kansas City Chiefs fan my entire life and this weekend I finally get to go to my first game at Arrowhead Stadium.”
In honor of that, Howard told his fans, he made his “own little version” of the classic Blues song, “Kansas City.”
“I’m going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come. Going to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come.
“They got some loud football fans there and oh I’m going to be one. I’m going to be screaming in the stands there, section 329. Going to be sitting with my cousin, y’all, in section 329. With my Kansas City jersey on with that 1-5.”
Maybe, he thought, he’d get a few thousand views or make some new friends and country music fans in the KC area and find a good tailgate to drop by.
“The next thing you know, like every news station in Kansas City is playing it on the air,” Howard says now. “And, you know, all these people are inviting me to their tailgates.
“That’s kind of what started it all.”
At the game, he and his cousin thought of their grandpa, who died in 2007.
“Knowing, you know, that my grandfather would have loved not only being there, but just being there with us. That was big.”
‘Run it Back’
That parody led to another. And then after the Chiefs lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game, things kind of died down for the singer/songwriter. At least on the Chiefs front.
Until the next season. More parodies during the playoffs. More fans. And a whole lot of victories.
Just a few weeks after Kansas City’s first Super Bowl win in 50 years, COVID hit.
Gigs stopped. More time at home, brainstorming ways to make music and money. The pandemic was rough for everybody, especially musicians who rely on performing in front of crowds, Howard said.
It’s how “Run it Back,” his original song about the Chiefs’ quest for another ring, came to be.
“We were just completely locked down,” Howard said of that first year of COVID. “And I didn’t play a show until the next February…. So I had a year of nothing going on.”
He wanted to write about the team’s history and the fans whose support — even during the losing years — never died. He got a team together to produce it and released the single right before the playoffs that season.
“The last one took us fifty years,” he wrote in “Run it Back.” “But we’re loaded up, the gangs all here. And that trophy’s staying right here in KC.
“This ain’t no other season, here in Chiefs Kingdom. So run it back for the boys from ’69. Back for the fans on 12th and Vine. Run it back to back and raise it high. We ain’t here to tip the cap. Ain’t no time for a victory lap. No, we came to run it back.”
Watching the response to the song was crazy fun for Howard and his family.
“All of a sudden, there’s like, 40 radio stations (across six states) playing it,” Howard said. “So that kind of really kicked that up, too. So … not only am I the Chiefs’ parody guy or the video guy, but “Run it Back” was kind of the thing that took off more than the parody videos at the time.
“I think I’m over a million streams on that one, and I also have a lot of downloads on that one.”
The Chiefs played the song inside Arrowhead Stadium during the playoffs in January 2021.
Everyone knows the end of that season’s story. No Super Bowl win. But Howard tweaked the lyrics a bit and produced “Take it Back” the following season.
“The last one took us 50 years, but last year’s done, no time for tears. Let’s raise the bar and win another ring. Let’s get it done this season, here in Chiefs’ Kingdom. So take it back for the boys from ‘69, back for the fans at 12th and Vine. Take that trophy back and raise it high.”
The Chiefs did. Eventually. But not until 2023. And then again in 2024. .
Now, what about that third in a row?
Finding the right words
This season, Howard went all in. Maybe it was the chance for yet another Super Bowl win, something his grandpa never got to see. Or for just the thrill of waiting and watching to see which parody might hit just right.
Could one match the popularity of the parody of the Brooks & Dunn song? Or appeal to fans as much as last year’s “Chiefs Win Games in Cold Places,” to Garth Brooks’ song, “Friends in Low Places,” with its’ memorable tune? Or get those Taylor Swift fans excited, like a parody he did last season to her song, “You Belong with Me,” written to set the Swiftie fan base on fire?
Instead of writing and recording just for the playoffs, he has posted at least one each week since that first game in Baltimore.
Within hours of the Chiefs getting that 27-20 victory, after the toe of Ravens’ Isaiah Likely was ruled out of bounds in the end zone on the final play of the game, fans had an idea for Howard’s next parody.
“One Toe Over the Line,” was born. Sung, of course, to the song, “One Toke Over the Line” by American folk rock duo Brewer and Shipley, who got their start in Kansas City and became international stars with that first single.
“All these people were commenting, ‘These guys were from Kansas City, you need to do this,’” Howard said. “I was like, ‘I’ve never even heard this song.’ But I just kept getting comments about it, and so I literally just went and listened to it a few times, learned it, and then wrote it as one toe over the line.
“Next thing you know, it’s got, you know, a couple hundred thousand views.”
That video has now been viewed 1.5 million times on Facebook.
“One toe over the line, thank you Jesus,” he sang. “One toe over the line. The Chiefs just beat the Baltimore Ravens, one toe over the line. Waited for the rain to move on, sweet Mary. The game didn’t start on time. But the Chiefs still beat the Baltimore Ravens, one toe over the line. Yeah, one toe over the line.”
Howard doesn’t watch the Chiefs with a pen and pad in his hand, just his eyes glued to the game.
Maybe if a good line comes to mind, he’ll jot it down in the notes app on his iPhone.
“But it’s more just like song ideas that I think would work,” he said. One season, he used Queen songs for the playoffs, and of course he knew “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” would make a pretty cool “Thank God I’m a Chiefs fan.” You can watch that video, here.
He writes about what he sees and feels and many times, it’s what the fans are feeling.
Take his parody from earlier this season called “Chiefs O-Line,” to the tune of “Hold the Line” by Toto.
“It’s driving me crazy when you’re holding,” he sang. “Just get in the way if you can. Are you just lazy or is Mahomes not your friend? ... Chiefs O-line. Can you please block him this time?”
One person commented: “You put to music what we’ve been yelling at our TV’s the past few weeks. Love it.”
Howard admits it takes him a little while to get over a Chiefs loss. Always has.
So when his team fell to the Bills in November, during Week 11, it took him a little while to get the video ready. Instead of only singing about the loss, he focused on the upcoming game against the Carolina Panthers. He called it “Beat Carolina” to the classic Neil Diamond song, “Sweet Caroline.”
One person, apparently not a Chiefs fan, commented on the Facebook post of the parody.
“Get a life!”
Howard replied soon after: “This is my life blanehoward.com.”
When asked what his grandpa would have thought about the popularity of his parodies and songs and the fan base he’s made inside Chiefs Kingdom, he laughs a bit.
“I think he’d be more amazed by the success of the franchise.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
