RADIO.COM's Katie Neal welcomed singer Kenny Chesney to our airwaves as this week’s co-host for the Superstar Power Hour. He's been keeping himself quite busy during the long pause on touring due to the coronavirus -- picking up hobbies like gardening, obviously creating music, and as he says, "coming up with more than a hundred ways to be bored" out of his mind.
"When the pandemic happened," he tells Katie, "I took it very seriously and I still take it very seriously. So, I haven't traveled that much. I try to be creative and I try to stay positive, and haven't done much of anything else other than that."
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That positive thinking of his brought about Kenny's latest single, "Happy Does," from his 2020 release Here And Now.
"I think my wheelhouse is talking about things that obviously make people happy," he says. "But I feel like in our everyday life right now, we live our everyday lives, it seems, watching other people live their lives and trapped within our devices. When I first heard 'Happy Does,' I literally had two devices within a hand's reach of me... multitasking."
"This song, for me, is a reminder to myself to try to live in the moment, try to breathe in and breathe out, and remember that there's a whole big world out there outside of your phone. And I thought that somebody else might need to hear it too."
Although when recording the song, Kenny couldn't have foreseen putting the song out into the current state of the world, he says he's glad he did because a song like "Happy Does," in his view, "promotes connectivity."
"I think it's very interesting they call it social media because it makes you so antisocial. But that's what the message of the song was... about connection and just realizing that there's a lot of life to live out there if you just go do it."
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Leaning on the power of music has become a major part of people's lives during the past year, simply as a means to get through the days. For Kenny, a tried and true music fan, that statement certainly applies.
Between his collection on his computer and home library, Kenny says there's something different every day. "There's just so much stuff," he admits. "I have different playlists for different things. Like when I run it's something that is different; when I'm on the boat it's a more chill playlist... a lot of Jack Johnson. There's a lot of stuff that seems to fit the moment. But when I'm working out, I've got a lot of hard guitars in there. When I'm having a few beers, sometimes it's more Country. I'm just so consumed with music and I've always been that way."
Growing up in East Tennessee, Kenny was exposed early to Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, and Rock music... "now it's what's considered Classic Rock," he laughs. "I had so much coming in, feeding my brain, as a child and a young adult. Once you start making music and you start going down the road where making music is your life, it only makes sense the music you made is a direct reflection of what you soaked up as a sponge early on in your life."
It's been just a little over twenty-three years since Kenny's very first number 1 single, "She's Got It All." Now with a whopping thirty-one number one singles under his belt, he can still remember vividly getting the news about his first big milestone. As the story goes, he found out during a photoshoot in Puerto Rico -- this is before cell phones, kids – where he had to physically step into a phone booth to make a call. And that’s just what he did.
"I knew it was 50/50 if we were going to get number 1 on that song," he says. "After the photoshoot was done, before I went to dinner and had a few beers, I called the label... and they told me [the song] went number 1. It was a really, really wonderful moment for me, because I had been putting out records for a while, and they didn't get anywhere close to going to number 1. It was an amazing moment... and I'm telling you... the thirty-first feels just as good as the first one. Having people care about your music and connect with it and want to see live never gets old."
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Thirty-one career-spanning hits sure is a lot, and Kenny's got plenty more besides the songs that went to the top. So, is there one track that he'd like to forever be remembered for?
"That's a tough one," Chesney says. "My favorite song to do live, and when we do it live every night the show just seems to go to a different level. It's one of my favorite songs, I wrote, and I wrote it by myself on the bus one night... I was literally up all night, and I wrote 'I Go Back' by the time we got to the next city. That's still one of my favorite songs I've ever wrote. If I had to pick it would be that, or 'Old Blue Chair,' which was on a more acoustic record -- an album I did that I wrote on my boat over a five-six year period."
All of this talk about live music has us itching for an event. All in due time, we guess. But let's go backstage with Kenny for a moment. What are some of the pre-show rituals he's become accustomed to -- and is likely missing right about now?
He says it's been "pretty much the same," over the years. Meet and greets for about an hour and then he ducks into the special "Sock monkey lounge" that his crew sets up for special guests complete with couches, a full bar, and music. "So, I've got about 45 minutes to say a quick hello to all of our guests... it allow me to say hi to everybody quickly but not stay too long, because I have a job to do."
"Once I'm done with all that, I go back into the bus, I lay on the floor and I just breathe," he says. "It helps to get oxygen into your brain, into your bloodstream. It settles you down, takes care of all anxiety, and it just makes me focus on what I have to do... It's great to do in your everyday life but especially if you're gonna go play in front of 50,000 people!"
Finally, about five minutes before leaving the bus to take the stage, Kenny's lifelong friends whom he's taken on the road with him since the start of his career come on the bus to walk him out to the stage. "Still to this day," whatever stadium they're playing, just like they did in the past when playing bars, "it’s a moment for us to give a high five and once again recognize how fortunate we are to do what we do."
As humble as Kenny is, sticking with his childhood friends throughout his career, he must still get starstruck just like the rest of us at times, right? Listen above to the full interview with Katie and find out what celebrity he simply couldn’t believe walked onto his bus!
Tune in to the Superstar Power Hour with Katie & Company every weekday on your favorite RADIO.COM Country stations and be sure to get your votes in for the RADIO.COM Country Top 20!
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