I've had some shows where I really plan out what I'm going to say. Then I've had other shows where I'm like, 'Take a sip of the Ole Smoky Moonshine and just let it be natural and cross your fingers that you say the right things.'
— Dierks Bentley
It's hard to make music when you're not excited about it. So trying new things and going for new things is something that I can enjoy doing.
I hung out with Merle Haggard on his bus, which sort of freaks me out. It was him and his wife. We played with Merle in Oklahoma City. I'm from Arizona, and we talked about Arizona, and he remembered playing for two dollars a day down there at a bar.
I hope fans walk away still feeling like their batteries are charged. I want fans walking away high-fiving strangers.
Honestly, I sleep best wearing nothing. But with kids, I've learned to sleep with underwear very close by, if not wrapped around one of my feet, so I'm ready to go if something happens.
I started thinking about this truck and why do I still have this same truck? After all of these years, why am I holding on to that? I just starting thinking about other things: guitars, boots and jeans. I just had a tendency to hold on to the things that have meaning to me.
I listen to all types of music, but big rock records are the ones that, in the walk-up, make me wonder, 'What's this next set going to sound like?'
I'm trying to call more and text less. I don't want to check my phone 5,000 times a day anymore. It was getting to me. I'm bringing 'old' back.
I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.
I've had fans and friends in the business say, 'Oh man, you've made it.' I still don't feel like I've made it. I still feel like I'm as good as my last show, as good as my last single.
If people sneak into my show, that's a sign of a good show, you know? If people want to risk getting in trouble with the law to come see you play music, that's a sign you're doing something right.
When I'm done with all of this, I'm going to write a book on it: have a guide to having a life and being on the road. Especially having a family and being on the road.
I wrote a song called 'Here on Earth,' and the hook is, 'There's no answers here on earth.' Basically, searching for the 'why' when someone passes away, and I feel really fortunate that my dad lived as long as he did. But no matter what happens or how it happens, it's certainly a stinker.
The radio is not show fun, it's show business. It's money.
I've known my wife since we were 13 years old in eighth grade, and we kinda dated each other's best friends. The four of us always hung out, but I really wanted her. We dated around 17, but I was no way mature enough for her.
Hey, if someone is crushing on me, and it brings them out to the show, so be it!
I'm on stage 13. I'm at that can't-be-replaced stage. The transformation I've been through personally with my wife is amazing, but having two girls and a boy, man, that's the painful stuff.
I never want to lose the audience's attention or break up the party, but at the same time, it would be weird not to do some new music.
My guitar, it was new when I got it, but it has a hole like Willie's where it's just worn out from my pinky going back and forth over the wood over all these years. I got Willie Nelson to sign that spot on my guitar. I'm a huge fan of him.
My dog Jake ran up to Dolly Parton, and he put his nose up her skirt. We were like, 'Oh my God, don't do that.' I didn't know Dolly, and she said, 'Watch out there little doggie, don't start something you can't finish.'
I remember somewhere in his 70s, my dad started wearing a nightgown - like an old-school grandpa gown! I can see how that might be somewhere in my future.
Seven has always been my lucky number. It's on my guitar pick; in sports, that was always the number I was, and 'Riser' is my seventh album. With this album kind of coming to an end and having seven nominations at the ACMs, it feels like a bigger story in play for me, and it's the perfect number. I wouldn't have wanted eight!
I get nervous playing the Opry still. You take that nervous energy and channel it into being amped.
Everyone talks about new love all the time, but there's so much to draw from when you've been in a longer relationship. It makes me stick my chest out a little bit. It's like, 'I know what you've been through, but you don't know what it's like over here.'
I went into the Verizon store the other day, and the salesman was pretty excited. He was like, 'Hey Dierks, what can I show you?' I said, 'The cheapest, lowest tech phone you have.' I think he was disappointed. Everybody else was running out for the new iPhone 6, but I got a flip phone.
When I got to Nashville, people started asking me about how I got into country music. I'd tell them I came from a place where people wore cowboy hats for a real reason.
As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those '80s hair-band CDs behind - which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.
I go from being in front of 2,000 people, shot-gunning beers on stage and acting like a complete idiot, to being in a Mommy and Me class, waving a little pink handkerchief around 12 hours later!
Meeting my wife changed everything; it really, in the long run, made me a much better artist, a much better songwriter, a much better maker of albums.
I love bluegrass music, I love acoustic music, and I try at the right times to push that a little bit.
I see myself as a serious artist, but yeah, when people come to my shows, they want to hear 'What Was I Thinkin',' 'Drunk on a Plane,' and lots of up-tempo, fun songs.
I really love flying, but it's really nice to jump on a plane, sit back, and let someone else do the heavy lifting, but flying is my main passion for sure.
I don't tour to make money: I do it because I love it. When I'm putting a tour together, I'm not sitting with number-crunchers, having them tell me I can't do this or that.
I try to make my box as big as it can be because I never want to do the same thing twice.
That's how I feel, oddly, when I walk on stage in front of 20,000 people, and it's crazy, the madness: I feel the most relaxed and free, and all of my worries and troubles just are gone. Just I feel the most present in that moment.
I met Michael Jordan on a golf course! I don't even know what to say. I'm still freaked out that I met him.
I think about me and my dad taking a road trip from Phoenix to Nashville when I was 19. He's no longer here with me, but I still drive that same 1994 Chevy truck. I never have bought a new car.
A Sunday morning spent reading the paper together, maybe drinking some mimosas, alone, and talking until noon. That would be pretty amazing. Married couples with kids will understand.
I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.
I ask myself all the time, 'Why keep doing this?' If I wasn't exploring or finding something to write about that was personal or meant something, there'd be no reason. If I was ever making a record just to make a record, or ever just like, 'Just put something out there that someone will buy,' I would quit.
Some people associate red with love, but to me, red is for an earlier stage of a relationship. Black is much deeper, to me. It's certainly the sexiest color.
I have so much respect for the genre of country music and for all the greats that have been a part of it. I'm a country singer, I'm a country fan, and I'm a student of country music.
Growing up in Arizona, I love fireworks, shooting off bottle rockets and M80s.
I was 17, and a friend said, 'Man, you've got to listen to this song,' and he played 'Man to Man.' From there on, I was hooked on country. Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black. Every show that came through America West Arena, I was there.
If I'm not on stage, I'm a pilot. I like flying planes; I have a little plane back in Nashville.
Music is my first love, and I can't step away from her. I love music, and I love playing and living the dream, but I also miss my family.
There should be a whole book written about that one word: country. What does that mean, country? It's such a huge umbrella. I would hope that what makes it country is that it all starts with a song. The story being told in three and a half minutes that is not being told on another station.
The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road - you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder - it gets a little bit ragged.
It's Frederick Dierks Bentley, but my whole family goes by their middle name - my sister, my brother. So from day one, I've always been called Dierks.
Love always had my number. I could never patch a breakup together with whiskey and a one-night stand. I took them real hard.
