KENNY CHESNEY

The Wall Street Journal called him “the King of the Road,” the L.A. Times deemed him “the People’s Superstar” and The Dallas Morning News recently weighed in with “two parts Mick Jagger, one part Bruce Springsteen, one part Billy Graham.” Mostly, Kenny Chesney chronicles coming of age between the coasts in a way that makes exactly where people are the most desirable place to be—and he’s racked up 27 #1s overall, 13 #1 country album debuts and nine overall chart-topping albums along the way. The only country act in the Top 10 touring acts of the last 25 years—in spite of only becoming a headliner in 2002—he’s sold over a million tickets on each of his tours, including a million for Big Revival 2015 before the first note was even played. Chesney’s known for his high-energy, good-feeling performances, and fans travel across the country to catch as many shows as possible as part of the self-proclaimed No Shoes Nation.

Is there a secret to doing stadiums? You’re doing 23 again this summer.
When we first started, I didn’t know how far I had to go to reach everybody. That first year was a learning curve, because that’s what I’m really good at—looking everyone in the eye, really connecting and touching every single person. It’s more a mental thing. On Friday night, before every stadium show, I have to go to the top and just sit there for a little while and feel it. I know what it feels like from the stage, how it feels to me, but it’s not the same. When you sit in the top back row of a stadium, you realize you have to go a little farther than you thought. It’s just me and my thoughts, measuring the distance mentally and emotionally. It’s easy to connect with people close to you, but it’s the ones in the back you don’t want to forget. When I see people standing up at the top, dancing and clapping, there’s no feeling like it.

Do they identify with you—or what you sing about?
I see a lot of familiar faces out there—people with their eyes wide open. Maybe it’s their first concert. Maybe they didn’t think they liked music that much. Especially those kids with the look on their faces that there’s something beyond the county line. All that’s changed because of the music. I remember going to see Jackson Browne at Knoxville Civic Coliseum by myself. It was the Lives in the Balance tour. I was a fan, and it was something I needed to see. None of my buddies were interested in singer/songwriters; they all liked Def Leppard. I was learning a lot about songwriting and structure then. I listened to him every day driving to school, because those songs had so much heart and life and truth to them. That was what I wanted.

I’ve been on the road a long time, knowing how powerful the music was to an impressionable kid. I left Jackson’s concert that night and it was very powerful. I was very influenced and moved. It set me on a path that would define my life. Music really fed me then, and it feeds me now —it still does. That music holds up, and that’s what I want my music to do.

Does it feel like it’s working?
Every night when I do “I Go Back,” I tell the audience, “Music is the thing that holds your life.” Nothing brings people together more than music or sports—but music is more universal. No matter your politics, religion, how you grew up, the one thing that brings people together is music. I’ve met so many people I’d never’ve been friends with in high school. But because of music, it’s crazy the people I have in my life. I see all kinds of different people looking out in the No Shoes Nation, but they all have the same look on their faces when they hear the songs.

How important is music?
I can’t imagine life without it. Beyond finding common ground with people, it’s where I go when I have absolutely nothing else, It’s always been medicine for me. I believe music can change people: mentally, emotionally, give them balance, take them home, encourage. After the show in Pittsburgh, a guy came up to me with a picture of a bunch of guys he’d been deployed with. He told me every morning when first they got up and last thing before they went to sleep, they all listened to “Back Where I Come From”—because it brought them back, gave them a little piece of home. For those boys over there in the Middle East, that was something they needed. You don’t realize that when you write or record a song, but you hope. For me, music made me reach beyond the unknown and chase a dream on blind faith [laughs]. It pulled me so hard; there was no going back, even though I had no idea how to get there.

When you hit Nashville, you played for tips at the Turf on Lower Broadway when it was seedy and no tourists went there. You parked cars. You got a publishing deal with the same publisher Hank Williams Sr. wrote for—Acuff Rose. How did all that shape your fundamentals?
It’s the foundation I still draw on. I was fortunate to be around some of the most creative people in Nashville; their song sense was burned into my memory and soul. There was a very strong foundation of great songwriting around me. I could walk across the street to Buddy Cannon, who became my producer, to play him a song, talk about music. People like Dean Dillon and Whitey Shaffer, who really cared about those things set a bar I never want to fall short of. All of a sudden, I wasn’t on the outside dreaming, I was inside the store—barely —and I absorbed everything.

What does that mean?
One thing with Dean and Whitey was that honesty in songs brings about a deeper connection between people. You’re writing a song and inside your own feelings; you think it’s too honest. They taught me you can never be too honest, because somebody out there is feeling that too. Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson—they all have that. It draws me to them.

Is that why you took the year to make The Big Revival? Three straight #1s in, it’s still a pretty vast and deep record.
I didn’t know if I could pull it off without time to live and breathe and really get into a creative space, to be around songwriters as a songwriter, give it that time and really dive deep. Just like it’s not right to do the same show every year, you can’t go into the studio tired and try to make a record that feels like you’re investing your soul in those songs. You can’t do what you’ve always done. I knew that, and this many records in, it’s harder than you think—but also incredibly inspiring to try to do.

Look at your recent #1 with Grace Potter, “Wild Child.” At a time when girls in country songs are mute hotties in cut-offs, you painted a very different picture. That’s radical in today’s marketplace.
From how I grew up on the creative side, “Wild Child” isn’t such a risk. Based on what’s happening now, maybe it was. But it also feels like a song—even if it’s challenging—that needed to be heard. One of the reasons I think it connected is, it gives voice to some people who aren’t being sung to.

I’ve got friends from the islands and New Hampshire and all over the world who can’t be tied down and wanna live. They color outside the lines, they love love, but they’re not irresponsible. That’s why I thought of Grace—she is every line of that song. Maybe you do need to really listen to it for the song to truly resonate. As a songwriter, I’m proudest of this one because, as the world is changing, to get people to sit still and really listen? There are so many ways to be distracted with our phones and computers and schedules; you have to make it worthwhile.

You’d rather fight than dumb down?
The easy way out is to not ask more of the fans, to just drop whatever’s easy. But why surrender your creativity to follow the crowd? I think if you ask more of your audience, they will respond. If you ask less, they will respond too. It’s that simple.

You hear a lot of griping about country music. An article just said that based on what’s on the radio, it’s a third-grade reading level.
I don’t think it’s right to belittle the audience because of the music being made. You have to ask if the gatekeepers are listening to some of this stuff and going, “This is great.” Maybe they are, but you wonder. Our audience isn’t dumb. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I feel in tune with country fans. I grew up around ’em; I was one. You can’t sell these people short. I know my audience. They’re fun and smart and hard-working. They seek fun and they really live their lives. They’re passionate and music matters to them, so I’m not sure that’s true based on the No Shoes Nation.

Don’t you think some of it, though, is knowing who you are? Seek your own path and try to reflect your actual life, right?
I had 18 songs on a Greatest Hits record and no one knew who I was. They knew the songs, but they didn’t know me. I loved George Strait, was out on his tour for two years. He was my idea of star, and that seemed to be the path. But one day I realized that wasn’t really true to who I was. I looked in the mirror and told myself, “Do you wanna be a George Strait wanna-be, or an authentic Kenny Chesney?” Because you can use the same tricks, the same blueprint and see where it gets you. You can be successful and spinning your wheels. It’s an easier path, but where does it end? Once I made the decision to not be someone else, that’s when my life changed.

A lot of people copy you—spring break concerts, college bar shows, island songs.
I can’t talk about anyone else. I just know that once I realized what I was doing, I only wanted to be myself—and that’s when things fell together. I’m always trying to push, to find the next thing, explore the next song or stage or whatever, take it further.

You’ve followed your creative heart. You make mainstream blockbusters and introspective albums. Somehow you balance.
There’s the business of doing business, but there’s also shifting gears and letting the pendulum swing the other way as a human being, as an artist. With The Big Revival, the audience was ready for it—to be talked to, to exhale and also take something this intense in. Revival covers a lot of ground, but again, my audience will listen to “American Kids,” which changes up three times, has a double hook and celebrates who we are in the middle of the country, then slow down with a song that reminds me of growing up in East Tennessee like “Don’t It” with Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski. I’ve been blessed to be able to do more reflective songwriter records because Country radio knows I’m going to give them solid, mainstream hits. They recognize the creative restlessness of my other side and support it because they know it feeds the rest. And I’ve had a lot of them tell me they play the hits, but it’s the songwriter records that’re the ones they really live with and listen to.

You will have headlined 135 stadiums when your tour ends in August. You’ve won Entertainer of the Year eight times. You’ve had 27 #1s. What’s left? In 10 years, what do you hope you’re doing?
I get asked for advice all the time by acts who’ve been doing it 10, 11 years who want to “go to the next level”—or they say that. But are they really hungry enough? Some people get to a certain level and they’re over the fight and the struggle. I put my whole life into this: my focus, my work, and in a lot of ways, everything else. I needed to know how far I could take the fans, what thresholds we could push past. I don’t know that I could’ve imagined this, but I always believed there was more.

Joe Galante, Dale Morris, Clint Higham —they had the blueprints for how to break ground before I ever got to town, and I’ve been blessed to have them, and people who weren’t afraid to push or challenge me, because that’s what it takes. That helped get me here.

In 10 years, I still want to have that—to be hungry, to have the desire to still matter. I want to be seeking better songs, better live shows, to keep finding the edge that pushes us to see what else there is within this music. I have a lot of heroes who’re still killing it. The Rolling Stones, Springsteen…and the people care because they care. You’re not just rolling through town because this is tonight’s stop on the itinerary. People deserve better than that, and so does the music. It’s that simple.•