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 "This album, I
hope moves me closer
to where I'd like to be --
someone who speaks honestly about the stuff these moments, these simple
moments that define our lives, are made of.
To me, that's important as a writer -- and an artist.
'No Shoes' was a picture of where I was in my life at that time…
and there was wrenching stuff,
but I'd like to think I'm pretty much an open, if emotional, book."
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
Academy of Country Music Top Male Vocalist of the Year. "I'm at peace
with where I am in my life. I like to be serious; I read a lot and I
think a lot - though people might not realize that. But to be whole, you
need a release. You need to get laid-back, too, to have fun…
"With No Shoes , I think we did that… had fun and looked at some pretty
rough emotions. I'd like to think I'm serious enough to do a song like
'Some People Change' 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's how people really are: both! They
need and want that.
"My audience is smart. They are real people who lead whole lives - want
to party on the weekend, feel free, but also feel that deep love, raise
a family. I know that, 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 bitter sweetness 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 off guard, 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 the bleachers, I can still see that special girl that I
kissed… and my really good friend 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 some level 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 could get 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 so much 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 what was 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 whole other way to live,
and it gets you to thinking about what you're doing - and why.
"One day I got up and went out into the middle of the water, and
listened to No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems all the way through - just
took it in, thought about 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 and learned so much about myself and life and
other people. I'm proud of my last record, the way I put so much of
myself out there - and I knew what we had to do 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've ever been; I'm more creative and learning how to write better songs
- to take an emotion and make it mean something, take other people into
the feelings. But I 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 happier on a fishing boat than they are back home. When I first
got down there, I don't know if I was running from a real bad heartbreak
or running to something I thought would 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 of it. 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 hung over, 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
needs to be… And the thing about country music, it is about those kinds
of moments and 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. The church you go to on Sunday morning's country… And
that's a good thing. It means something. 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've run a bank, taken on the Supreme Court… and back when we
were in college, we ALL 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 loves her 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 that wasn'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… we all hated that our black friend might've wondered
if we all felt like the father in that moment, because that's how people
are raised. When he stood up for that kid, 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
inspiring to watch people have the courage to go through hell and what
frightens them to get better. Those are the people with real courage…
and they're everywhere if you'll look. See them for what they are, for
what they do and you'd be shocked at 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 the entire gamut -- and it's always
the sweetest When The Sun Goes Down.
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