Zitat des Tages von Dierks Bentley:
Everyone talks about new love all the time, but there's so much to draw from when you've been in a longer relationship. It makes me stick my chest out a little bit. It's like, 'I know what you've been through, but you don't know what it's like over here.'
People are gravitating towards Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because they are doing their own thing. I think people are trying to cut out the middle man and just get to the source and get away from Washington politics.
I see myself as a serious artist, but yeah, when people come to my shows, they want to hear 'What Was I Thinkin',' 'Drunk on a Plane,' and lots of up-tempo, fun songs.
The people I always loved listening to had a little bit of dirt under their fingernails because they had done some living and had these stories to talk about.
I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.
I got into rock music at thirteen, listening to Van Halen, learned how to play the electric guitar.
I love bluegrass music, I love acoustic music, and I try at the right times to push that a little bit.
I ask myself all the time, 'Why keep doing this?' If I wasn't exploring or finding something to write about that was personal or meant something, there'd be no reason. If I was ever making a record just to make a record, or ever just like, 'Just put something out there that someone will buy,' I would quit.
I want to be free to be any version of me I feel like being. I don't want to be McDonald's that serves the same food every time.
Meeting my wife changed everything; it really, in the long run, made me a much better artist, a much better songwriter, a much better maker of albums.
I'm part of the party, getting the crowd fired up, singing songs, pouring drinks, whatever it takes to get them to have a good time. When I walk into the meet-and-greet, someone's always going to have a story, a sad story or a happy story.
I hung out with Merle Haggard on his bus, which sort of freaks me out. It was him and his wife. We played with Merle in Oklahoma City. I'm from Arizona, and we talked about Arizona, and he remembered playing for two dollars a day down there at a bar.
I try to make an album that reflects what I love about country music. It's not just all about happy parties all the time. There are some sad songs.
Honestly, I sleep best wearing nothing. But with kids, I've learned to sleep with underwear very close by, if not wrapped around one of my feet, so I'm ready to go if something happens.
I put a lot of pressure on myself. I tell my wife when she's listening to my songs that the slightest hint of whether she likes it or not puts the pressure on me.
Growing up in Arizona, I love fireworks, shooting off bottle rockets and M80s.
I'm a huge fan of Billy Idol. I spiked my hair every day like him in 7th and 8th grade.
I met Michael Jordan on a golf course! I don't even know what to say. I'm still freaked out that I met him.
If people sneak into my show, that's a sign of a good show, you know? If people want to risk getting in trouble with the law to come see you play music, that's a sign you're doing something right.
I always say the best applause you can get is when you walk from backstage up to your microphone at a concert. It's also nice to walk up to the mike at an awards show, and that applause is great, too, but the best is when your fans are cheering for you.
A typical day for me on tour is a marathon - it's like five days rolled into one.
I went into the Verizon store the other day, and the salesman was pretty excited. He was like, 'Hey Dierks, what can I show you?' I said, 'The cheapest, lowest tech phone you have.' I think he was disappointed. Everybody else was running out for the new iPhone 6, but I got a flip phone.
That's how I feel, oddly, when I walk on stage in front of 20,000 people, and it's crazy, the madness: I feel the most relaxed and free, and all of my worries and troubles just are gone. Just I feel the most present in that moment.
I'm a member of the George Jones fan club, and I'm a member of U2's fan club.
My dad and grandpa were in the army and as a country singer you're constantly playing at military bases all across the country and meeting soldiers and their families and hearing their stories.
I feel like I've got a nice little niche where I stay just below the radar, which is perfect. I just don't want to be known for anything other than music.
There should be a whole book written about that one word: country. What does that mean, country? It's such a huge umbrella. I would hope that what makes it country is that it all starts with a song. The story being told in three and a half minutes that is not being told on another station.
It's Frederick Dierks Bentley, but my whole family goes by their middle name - my sister, my brother. So from day one, I've always been called Dierks.
Only in country music can you compare an old pickup truck and an old guitar to your wife and turn it into a love song... Thank God for country music.
The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road - you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder - it gets a little bit ragged.
I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.
Hey, if someone is crushing on me, and it brings them out to the show, so be it!
I hope fans walk away still feeling like their batteries are charged. I want fans walking away high-fiving strangers.
Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.
Love always had my number. I could never patch a breakup together with whiskey and a one-night stand. I took them real hard.
That's what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff.
