[citation needed] Following his parents' divorce, he moved with his mother to Crowley, Louisiana, where he picked up an interest in music and received his first guitar as a gift at the age of 12.

[4][5] Trahan's first release—the fifth for the Reb Rebel label—was a 45 RPM single of "Lookin' for a Handout" and "Kajun Ku Klux Klan".

[5] Two of these songs were eventually issued in album format by Reb Rebel Records under the title For Segregationists Only.

[7] Johnny Rebel's songs found some popularity in some Southern juke joints, but never received radio airplay, and in time Trahan largely forgot about the venture.

With the emergence of the Internet, Johnny Rebel gained newfound fame, and Trahan hired fan Brad Herman as his new manager in 2001.

He then recorded and released a new song titled "Infidel Anthem", describing the "whipping" America should lay on Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks.

[5] A CD compilation of his works simply shows a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan together with a depiction of the Confederate battle flag.

He said that he was performing in Kaplan, Louisiana, when someone in the crowd requested a Rebel song, and he obliged after making sure there were no black people in the audience.

[8] Johnny Rebel is often misidentified as the pseudonym of country singer David Allan Coe,[9] who achieved popularity during the 1970s and 1980s.

The confusion stems in part from the song "Nigger Fucker", which appears on Coe's Underground Album.

[11] An Anti-Defamation League report noted that "since the 1960s, when racist country singer Johnny Rebel recorded songs such as 'N-- Hatin' Me,' [sic] more than 500 hate rock bands have formed worldwide".

[citation needed] On May 17, 2006, an alleged hacker interrupted FM radio station WBAB in Babylon, New York, and played the Johnny Rebel song "Nigger Hatin' Me" for about a minute and a half.