As he releases his eleventh studio album Damaged Branches, out as we speak (June 13), Dierks Bentley is aware of greater than a bit about establishing an album — and a profession — that’s going to endure. After 20 years spent notching 18 chart-topping Country Airplay hits and establishing himself as seasoned headliner, the artist, who spent nights early in his profession soaking in bluegrass music at Nashville’s Station Inn and who collaborated with the bluegrass stalwarts Del McCoury Band on his debut 2003 album, says he’s tried to method his profession like a bluegrass band does a efficiency.
“It’s very collaborative, and all of the items are necessary. You’ll be able to’t make bluegrass music with out all these distinctive devices and distinctive voices,” Bentley tells Billboard. “I’ve tried to work with nice folks in each facet of my profession. It’s mixing my love of bluegrass instrumentation with my love of taking part in huge rooms, and that requires huge electrical guitars and drums and bass. The unique thought was to combine the bluegrass with the kickass, and I’m nonetheless attempting to do this.”
On Damaged Branches, he collaborated with a tight-knit group of fellow artists, producers and writers, together with Ross Copperman and Jon Randall, and feted musicians together with Jedd Hughes, Rob McNelly, Bryan Sutton and Charlie Worsham (who additionally performs in Bentley’s highway band).
“They know my music and are capable of take it locations that possibly I hadn’t even considered,” Bentley says. “They understand it from beneath the automobile — I is perhaps driving the automobile, however they know all of the nuts and bolts of it, so it’s nice working with these musicians.”
Bentley co-wrote 4 of the album’s 11 songs, infusing witty lyrics into “She Hates Me,” or analyzing the toils and rewards of working towards a aim on “One thing Value Fixing.” However a lot of the undertaking finds him locked in on highlighting the songs of different writers.
“There’s folks round me which are like, ‘Hey, you might want to have some extra songs on there that you just wrote.’ I simply need nice songs,” he says. “I really like being an enormous fan and proponent of the Nashville songwriting neighborhood. No one writes songs like Nashville. I’ve such respect for it, and I really feel fortunate [and] grateful to have some short-term possession of a few of these nice songs on this report.”
Fifteen years in the past, Bentley collaborated with Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson on “Unhealthy Angel” from his 2010 Up on the Ridge bluegrass album. On Damaged Branches, Bentley and Lambert reunite for the banjo-inflected “By no means You.”
“She’s somebody I’ve identified endlessly and whose voice I really like,” he says. “She’s precisely who she is offstage as she is onstage, and she or he is superior. I despatched the music to her, and she or he was in Scottsdale [Arizona]. She went right into a studio we discovered there and put down the vocal. She’s one of many true trailblazers in nation music.”
When Bentley heard the music “Damaged Branches,” written by Zach Abend, Beau Bailey and “Oil Cash” hitmaker Graham Barham, he says it “gave us a narrative” to assemble the album round.” He invited Riley Inexperienced and Nation Music Corridor of Fame member John Anderson to sing with him, linking collectively three generations of nation hitmakers.
Inexperienced was Bentley’s first name. “Immediately he was in on it and a few days later we had been within the studio. Whereas he’s singing, I used to be considering, ‘How can I make this much more particular?’” he remembers. “John Anderson got here to thoughts, as a result of the hyperlink between ‘Damaged Branches’ and [Anderson’s 1983 hit] ‘Black Sheep,’ simply subconsciously hit me. He got here within the studio by himself like per week later. What a legend. He got here off the highway—he drives himself in his RV to all his gigs, which is so basic. His RV had damaged down in Valdosta, Georgia and he spent three days in a motel—onerous M—ready to get it fastened. He’s the true deal and at all times has been.”
The music wraps with a little bit of good-natured, ad-libbed ribbing as Bentley, Inexperienced and Anderson ended up recording the ending collectively. “You hear us speaking [like on] Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett’s ‘It’s 5 O’Clock Someplace,’ I like that stuff,” Bentley says. “It’s humorous and it stands out in my thoughts once I take heed to these data. This music, it was all achieved collectively. It wasn’t no AI, no overdubbing or enhancing, simply us round one mic sort of giving one another crap.”
The music naturally felt just like the title observe that tied the undertaking collectively. “After I’m searching for songs, I’m looking for these songs which are like little damaged branches off the household tree,” Bentley explains. “Not the massive widespread ones, not those that sound like an enormous hit on radio. These are nice, however I’m looking for songs which are a little bit bit totally different.”
He provides, “That actually began with the [2014] Riser report and the music ‘Riser.’ I heard ‘Damaged Branches’ and thought it’s an amazing music as a result of I’m a damaged department. Most of my buddies are damaged branches. All of the folks I do know that got here to Nashville to do one thing in music are doing one thing that their household most likely didn’t do. They usually’re doing it; they love nation music.”
All through his profession, Bentley has prioritized lifting up the subsequent technology of artists, sifting by way of sounds and championing these artists whose music catches his ear. Burgeoning artist Stephen Wilson Jr. co-wrote two songs on the album, “Chilly Beer Can” and “One thing Value Fixing.” Bentley has additionally shared the stage with current breakout artists like Pink Clay Strays and Zach High, the latter of whom is opening for Bentley on his the Damaged Branches tour.
“I really like the spot I’m in in nation music. I’ve been round lots of the older cats, and I really like these guys—however I additionally love watching what the youthful artists are doing,” he says. “I really like what’s taking place in nation music proper now and I really like seeing these guys have that success. I first noticed Pink Clay Strays play at our Seven Peaks Pageant some time again. I most likely personally instructed like 500 folks about these guys. Similar with Zach. I’ve identified about him since his bluegrass days, simply [through] having a bunch of bluegrass guys in my band. Watching him come over to nation and do what he’s achieved, it’s been enjoyable to observe.”
The album ends with the reflective “Don’t Cry For Me,” which Bentley wrote with Jim Beavers. The music finds him taking inventory of his life and profession up to now and assuring that he’s proud of the way it’s all turned out.
“It’s very private for me simply realizing that sooner or later all of it does come to an finish, whether or not it’s your music profession or your life,” he says. “I’ve been actually blessed in my time right here in Nashville. It’s simply been an amazing profession and I’ve nonetheless acquired rather a lot left, hopefully, to do.”
One factor not on that record? Making films.
Although a lot of Bentley’s music movies, together with the clip for “She Hates Me,” make use of his pure comedic skills, that’s so far as he’s prone to go as an actor. “I really like making music movies, however I don’t have any need to do something past that,” he explains. “I get despatched some stuff, and typically folks assume, ‘Hey, everybody simply desires to be in a film,’ and I simply don’t. I really like movie and films and exhibits, however I feel I’m fairly good in my lane.”
However it’s doubtless followers might see him as soon as once more revisiting his bluegrass roots: “I take into consideration that on a regular basis once I’m listening to [SiriusXM channel] Bluegrass Junction. It’d be enjoyable to make one other report like that.”