Interview: Dierks Bentley

Two decades after being named the best new artist in country music, Dierks Bentley is still on the road – for a single reason: aviation.

A pilot since 2011, Bentley uses airplanes to get to some gigs, allowing him to lead a more “normal” home life, a process he illustrated on the morning of Aug 14, when he called in from Nashville on the day of a show.

“I'm gonna pick them (his children) up and hear how their day went and leave here around 3:30, go down to Houston and play this show,” Bentley said. “I'll be back here in bed by 12:30 or 1. It’s exhausting, but I’m able to be home for my kids and be there for my wife and I also get to do a rockin’ show in Houston.”

“I get to fly myself down there, and I get to fly my band with me,” he said. “What’s not to like about that?”

Bentley began his aviation life by logging hours in a small propeller plane. Then, through friendships and connections he landed a sponsorship from Cessna, which provides him with the planes he flies from Nashville to his shows.

“I'm type rated in the jet that I fly to gigs,” Bentley said. “In the propeller plane, I could take three other guys with me. With the jet, I can take the whole band. I don't own the plane. It's a tour sponsorship. I just kind of look at it as the way I get around. Ask people, if you had a choice to take the city bus or take your own car? And they will say take your own car, right? Because it’s more efficient. Same for us with flying. That’s kind of the analogy I make for the work we do.”

Now a well-established country star, Arizona native Frederick Dierks Bentley moved to Nashville in 1997, where, after attending Vanderbilt University for a year, he worked as a researcher for Country Music Television (CMT) and started writing songs that were pitched to other artists.

But he doesn’t see himself as a songwriter who transitioned to a performing artist.

“To be honest, I don't really like songwriting,” Bentley said. “I do a lot of it. I'm always appreciative when I write a great song and I love the songs I've written. But it was always about being in the band for me…I was playing on lower Broadway for all those years. There literally were times when nobody was there. I played one bar where even the bartender walked out to make a phone call. I’m singing for just the band. There’s no one out there and I’m happy with free beer. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. It’s always just about being in a band. And all I’ve ever wanted was just to be on a tour bus.”

Bentley got on that bus in 2003, when the first single from his self-titled debut album “What Was I Thinkin’” hit No.1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The album went platinum, and Bentley, with his dog Jake, rolled into clubs, as he built his career from the ground up.

In 2005, Bentley won the CMA Horizon Award (now Best New Artist) and became the third youngest member ever at the Grand Ole Opry. He now has 10 studio albums, four of them platinum, four gold, and has charted 18 No. 1 country singles.

His latest album, “Gravel & Gold,” took some extra effort to complete, as Bentley and his band did two recording sessions that failed to generate the magic and sound he wanted to hear with the album.

After taking a little time after the second recording session, Bentley figured out what the album was trying to become and he set about taking a third run at making the album.

“I was like OK, I’m making my 10th album. What this album needs to be is a collection of my greatest sounds, not greatest hits. I want to write all new songs, but make sure I capture all of the different sounds I’ve been associated with,” he said. “So there’s obviously the contemporary stuff on the radio, but also traditional country stuff and bluegrass and some ’90 stuff. So that was when I was like I need to produce this album myself and start over again from scratch, called the musicians, called the studio, called the engineer and brought in some other guys to help me finish it. And I’m really happy with the way it turned out.”

Bentley’s consistent success has put him in arenas, either opening for the likes of Brad Paisley, co-headlining or more often now, topping the bill himself.

But, Bentley said, he tries to play the big rooms the same way he did clubs.

“What I try to do with an arena is make it feel like a bar on Lower Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee, make it feel like a honky tonk,” he said. “That's always been my goal. I think you have to play a lot of small bars and clubs to be able to do that. No matter how big the room is, I’m like how can I make this feel intimate? That's just making sure you're looking at people in their faces and not sitting over the tops of their heads. I look at people in the eyes.

“If I’m taking someone’s energy because I stayed right, I’m reflecting off to someone over on stage left, and I'm looking up top, then bringing that down the people up front,” Bentley said. “It's more about just moving energy around the room. That's something you know, you can only really do when you have years of playing small bars, and you kind of get the confidence and the know how to do that.”

Bentley doesn’t fly to all his shows. If he has a two- or three-night run to cities relatively close to each other, he’ll fly into the first stop, take the bus to the next one or two, and then pick up a Cessna at the nearest airport to fly himself and the band home to Nashville. That method, which turns a four- or five-day run, into a two-day aerial excursion, has made touring tolerable – and not just for Bentley himself.

“On the bus where you’ve got to leave at least 24 hours ahead of time to get somewhere, you're just away from your family,” Bentley said. “You're missing everybody all the time. Your wife's angry at you. I think I would have quit a long time ago, but for aviation., It would not be fun (to be on bus tours). But as it is, it couldn't be more fun.”