 By writing and singing songs that reflected his own life, Kenny Chesney found himself a mirror that reflected the joys, heartaches, thrills, spills and lost nights of young fresh-faced America. His is a world of first kisses, first loves, first broken hearts and the unfurling of lives that are transitioning from school to the real world. That veracity of burgeoning adulthood found its roots on his nearly quadruple platinum No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems - and it offers a newfound maturity to When The Sun Goes Down .
"Anyone who's passionate about music is emotional," says the reigning Academyof Country Music Top Male Vocalist of the Year. "I'm at peace with where I amin my life. I like to be serious; I read a lot and I think a lot - though peoplemight not realize that. But to be whole, you need a release. You need to getlaid-back, too, to have fun…
"With No Shoes , I think we did that… had fun and looked at some pretty roughemotions. I'd like to think I'm serious enough to do a song like 'Some PeopleChange' or 'When I Think About Leaving,' but am also the kind of guy who'd hangout in the islands with Unkle Kracker, the way 'When The Sun Goes Down' is. That'show people really are: both! They need and want that.
"My audience is smart. They are real people who lead whole lives - want to partyon the weekend, feel free, but also feel that deep love, raise a family. I knowthat, because I know them, because I am them ultimately."
Kenny Chesney, born and raised in tiny Luttrell, Tennessee, is as typical as they come. Perhaps the slowest receiver in the history of high school football, but he made the team. He loved some girls. He had some laughs. He went to college. He found a dream. And then he hung on with everything he had.
When The Sun Goes Down in a lot of ways is the celebration of living life, seeking love and not being afraid to dream. With the man whose 2003 concert tour was bested only by Bruce Springsteen and the Dave Matthews Band decides to take on life, you can count on the music to capture the how-it-is. Whether it's the poignant "There Goes My Life," which reveals how life's surprising tragedies are often life's real reasons for living, the pensive harvest of the bittersweetness of soul searching and the passage of life "Old Blue Chair" or the percolating title track that celebrates island revelry with special guest Unkle Kracker, these are the phases and stages of real life fully inhabited.
Indeed, Chesney's own surging midtempo "I Go Back" is a mission statement about music's ability to be more than the soundtrack for one's life - but a companion that is as much a part of defining the moments as the place or what's said. "That song is totally about my life and how I grew up…and the way certain songs just put you in the moment, when it's happening and years later when they catch you offguard, transporting you again.
"David Farmer, my road manager, and I got in his truck and drove to Myrtle Beachthe day we graduated… the smell of an old gym floor puts me right back in thebleachers, I can still see that special girl that I kissed… and my really goodfriend who'd moved away to Jacksonville who got killed in a car wreck when hewas 17….there are songs that just are those people, places, times. That's what'I Go Back' is all about… and what I'd love to think this music might be on somelevel for anyone listening to it."
The potency of life is what it's all about. Chesney, who wrote four of Sun 's 11 songs, and the currents that carry you from moment to moment. When he released No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems , he was a young man on the verge - running from a heartbreak, trying to find his balance and make his place in the world.
In the three years since, Kenny Chesney has arrived - and stayed the same. "I still dream," admits the first man to play the University of Tennessee's high temple of college football Neyland Stadium since Michael Jackson brought his record-breaking Victory Tour to Knoxville. "Truthfully… I'm still dreaming the same dream I was when I was going to that music store in Johnson City to rent sound gear that I loaded into my truck - to drive an hour and a half to Galax, Virginia and play ' til two in the morning.
"Then I'd drive back, sleep in my truck 'til the music store opened back up,take the stuff back in and go to McDonalds to get something to eat so I couldget to class. That's how music burned inside me, how impossible that dream was- and what you start to realize is no matter where you are, there's always somuch more to accomplish…"
With the 2002 Billboard Country Single of the Year - his seven week #1 "The Good Stuff," which also won the Academy of Country Music's Top Single of the Year at their 2003 ACM Awards - in his back pocket, the friendship and respect of artists like Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and Kid Rock, the biggest fan-drawing country concert tour of 2003, it would seem that there's not much left for the soft-talking singer/songwriter from East Tennessee to burn for. But that would to miss the fire inside Kenny Chesney.
"When the Margaritas'n'Senoritas Tour ended and I went to the islands for whatwas my first real time off in three years, it was a strange feeling," he confesses. "Suddenly,the rhythm of the road had receded… the fans, who're my friends in so many ways,were gone… and it was just me and the sound in my head. You know, it's a wholeother way to live, and it gets you to thinking about what you're doing - andwhy.
"One day I got up and went out into the middle of the water, and listened toNo Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems all the way through - just took it in, thoughtabout what it meant to me then. I knew that guy who made that record, but inthe years since it had come out, I'd evolved so much as a person, had seen andlearned so much about myself and life and other people. I'm proud of my lastrecord, the way I put so much of myself out there - and I knew what we had todo with When The Sun Goes Down - paint the same picture of where I am now.
"I'm not running any more… I'm taking life as it comes. I'm happier than I'veever been; I'm more creative and learning how to write better songs - to takean emotion and make it mean something, take other people into the feelings. ButI also love to have fun. We've had a lot of it over the past year. I think When The Sun Goes Down captures both sides of me, that way."
Certainly fun defines the euphoric "Keg In The Closet" - another Chesney original - captures the wild nights of fraternity row where the freedom to chase the night, to find out who you are and how much fun you can have is a triumph of celebrating the moment with its "dog named Bocephus" and "going to class just to pass the time" and the tropicali "When The Sun Goes Down," which is all about the release of kicking back in a place where everything is sunny and bright and everyone wants to know your name.
"I meet a lot of characters in the islands, people who're running… who're happieron a fishing boat than they are back home. When I first got down there, I don'tknow if I was running from a real bad heartbreak or running to something I thoughtwould make me feel better. But since I've been spending time in the Caribbean,I've come to realize that I've got nothing to run from.
"I love it back home. I love where I'm from. I love everything about this life- even the getting hurt, because there's so much you learn. It's all part ofit. So when we set out to make this record, that was where the compass was pointing:to the truth that you should get waist deep and feel all of it, savor every moment,the bitter and the sweet, cause in all of that - that's where your life is."
That balance is in evidence in the yearning song of a perfect moment that is destined to be lost like sea foam, but that's burned forever in one's soul "Anything But Mine," that's the best Springsteen song the Boss didn't write, and the half-spoken/half-sung "When I Think About Leaving," with the weighing of the reasons to stay in a moment of frustration that could spark into a decision that would deny everything that matters.
"Too many people don't fight for the things in their life that really matter.They say 'Oh, we grew apart…' and maybe that's just laziness and not paying attention.When you lose something, like I did, it makes you wake up and realize…'
There is one perfect country song of loss and the wreckage of burned out hearts that is the "Mis'ry and Gin"-invoking waltz "Being Drunk's A Lot Like Loving You." As he says of the song that was started years ago on a notepad he'd never thrown out from one particularly pounding morning after, "I woke up, broken hearted and hungover, saw her picture and actually told it 'Being drunk's a lot like loving you…' because when you're drunk or heartbroken, the pain never seems to go away. You can escape for a little bit, but it always comes back, sometimes even worse.
"The thing about writing the lyrics first is they tell you what the song needsto be… And the thing about country music, it is about those kinds of momentsand emotions. So, being that country as someone said to me who'd heard it, well,look where I'm from! I grew up from where Roy Acuff's from, and Dolly Parton,Don Gibson, Dean Dillon. Chet Atkins is from my hometown!
"Where I'm from, no matter what you listen to, you talk country, you think country,you are country. Your family's country. The food on your table's country. Thechurch you go to on Sunday morning's country… And that's a good thing. It meanssomething. It stands for something. And, truly, when you scrape it all away,that is who I am. So that'll always be the place I come back to."
The people from back when continue to dot his life and populate his songs. With his three best friends from childhood involved in the top levels of his touring reality, a production crew anchored by the people who were there from the beginning and an emergent manager who was more young dreamer who believed and realized both of their dreams when no one else saw it, Kenny Chesney is about keeping these people close by. When you listen to "The Woman With You," a song empowering the girls who could decided that it's more about their family - a decision many'd decry as a cop-out -- Chesney can put a name and a face on it.
"Candy Holt is hands down the smartest person I know," he says flatly. "She could'verun a bank, taken on the Supreme Court… and back when we were in college, weALL knew it. Then she met Tim, and love happened, and all that fell out the window.She never even thinks about all the stuff that could've been, because she lovesher life. When I heard this song, I thought of her - and all the girls out therewith big dreams and more talent -- who found something that completed them thatwasn't all that, but so much more."
The transformative power of so much more… especially as it exists in the every day, in real lives. If any star on Nashville's Music Row is testament to that, it's Kenny Chesney, the 5'6" Acuff/Rose developing songwriter, player-for-tips and parker-of-cars who let the power of a dream carry him to the greatest heights of stardom. But the man People hailed as "The Sexiest Country Singer Alive" knows transformation is so much more than scaling the heights and quantifiable accomplishments.
Take "Some People Change," a song about jettisoning racism and overcoming addiction. "Not what people might expect from me," acknowledges Chesney with a laugh. "What people don't realize is that that sort of thing is ingrained, it's a way of thinking people are raised with… We had a father like that back when I was in high school, and I remember the shame we all felt when he made a big deal about a black friend of ours at a football team party we had at their house.
"And in that moment, our friend did the bravest thing I'd ever seen anyone do:he told his Dad our friend wasn't leaving. We all felt the way our friend did… weall hated that our black friend might've wondered if we all felt like the fatherin that moment, because that's how people are raised. When he stood up for thatkid, he stood up for us - and that was a lesson I never forgot.
"Just like watching a couple real good friends battling addictions. It's inspiringto watch people have the courage to go through hell and what frightens them toget better. Those are the people with real courage… and they're everywhere ifyou'll look. See them for what they are, for what they do and you'd be shockedat how inspiring it can be no matter where you are in your life."
Where you are in your life… For Kenny Chesney, life is a pretty sweet place to be. It's about the tides of the human heart, the kindness that lies inside people, the thrill of connecting with the fans, the way people can see themselves in his songs and gain insight, context or just a reason to kick up their heels. When it all comes down to it, you can weep, you can revel, you can feel theentire gamut -- and it's always the sweetest When The Sun Goes Down |
