Dierks Bentley is honored he was asked to take part on “The Driver,” the first single from Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley’s upcoming album of the same title, due February 5th. The song, which also features co-writer Eric Paslay, is nominated for a Grammy Award.

“‘The Driver’ is a really great song. I mean, there’s great songs and then there’s really great songs. It’s probably possible that it’s a career type of song for Charles as a songwriter and Eric Paslay, as well, as a songwriter on that record. What a great, great song. It’s kind of like a ‘Turn the Page,’” says Dierks. “It kind of sums up the life of a road musician, but also gets the fans in there and the bus drivers in there, obviously the singers, and it just kind of sums up that life so well that obviously we know and our fans know too. I was truly honored that they asked me to be the third wheel on the song, and I’m just really proud that Charles had the guts to put it out and Capitol Records had the guts to put it out, and it’s so cool that it’s honored for a Grammy [nomination].”

• Dierks just announced the title of his new studio album, Black, which will be released in the coming months.
• Dierks is set to co-host the 51st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards with Luke Bryan April 3rd.

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For PLATINUM selling singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley, it seems the most personal songs are also the ones most universally relatable to his fans. On his upcoming release, he raises the bar on that idea as he candidly explores the farthest corners of his own heart. His eighth studio album BLACK is set for release in early 2016. Fans can pre-order the collection now on Dierks.com and have access to extra tracks, bonus videos, special merchandise and VIP Black Card member experiences with Bentley on his 2016 tour.

“It’s a relationship album. And to do it right, I had to dig deep as a writer, dig into the Nashville songwriting community, and record songs that explore the shadows and edges of the heart. The songs on BLACK range from the lonesomeness of an impossible relationship to ones that describe the feeling of finding that person that makes you forget the one that broke your heart.”

Parts of the album are sexy, intimate and tender, some are quick-witted and wild, other pieces are broken, desperate, longing. As a result, some of the songs’ messages aren’t always flattering, but they’re inevitably candid.

“There’s a realness to the concept, the songs, the process and the production,” says Bentley. “And the title…BLACK is mysterious and sexy and has an edge that describes the sounds we were going for. A lot of it happens after dark, in the black of night. It’s personal too…Black is my wife’s maiden name.”

Dierks reassembled the RISER production team, including producer Ross Copperman and executive producer Arturo Buenahora Jr., and they collectively embraced the challenge of advancing Bentley’s sound while mining his past romantic successes and failures. Recording began cautiously in February 2015, but Bentley allowed the album to simmer for months while he pursued his SOUNDS OF SUMMER TOUR. He delved in again in the fall, building a project that’s both revealing and simultaneously mysterious. Fans will get their first hint at the results when Capitol Nashville releases the lead single in the coming weeks.

Instead of rehashing proven formulas, Bentley has doggedly reinvented his sound on every album and subsequently developed an uncommon mix of commercial success and critical respect. Each of his albums has developed its own identity and/or conceptual theme, be it the classic-country texture of MODERN DAY DRIFTER, the bluegrass/Americana bent of UP ON THE RIDGE or the resilience at the core of his last album, 2014’s RISER.

Today at 6:30P CT, Bentley will host a Twitter chat with fans who can participate by following @DierksBentley. For more information on upcoming events and new music, visit www.dierks.com.

Dierks Bentley is looking forward to hosting this year’s ACM Awards with his buddy Luke Bryan. He says he’s already been jotting down a few ideas that could make their way onto the show, but he will also be relying quite heavily on the talents of a few other folks, as well.

“I’ve got a couple of ideas that I’ve been putting down in my phone, and we’re getting ready to do some promo stuff here pretty soon, so we’ll start getting together on that,” says Dierks. “There are some great writers that write for the ACMs, and so we’ll lean on those folks and hopefully contribute some of our own things, as well. But, I think down to the end of it, it just comes down to me having a few drinks and just being loose, you know? I’ve had some shows where I really plan out what I’m going to say, then I’ve had other shows where I’m like, take a sip of the Old Smokey Moonshine and just let it be natural and cross your fingers that you say the right things. I think it’s kind of a combination of the two.”

The 51st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will air live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas April 3^rd at 8pm ET on CBS.

A country star is setting up shop on Nashville’s Broadway. Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row is scheduled to open in early 2017 on Lower Broadway.

Dierks’ bar and restaurant will feature more than 50 beers on tap and three stages for live music, plus a rooftop deck. This is his third such establishment; the other two are in his home state of Arizona. Dierks pretty much got his start playing music in downtown honky-tonks.

“Lower Broadway’s honky-tonks are the stomping grounds of countless artists past to present chasing this crazy dream of playing music. It’s home of the bars where I cut my teeth night after night, usually running up a beer tab bigger than the tips I made covered,” Dierks said in a statement issued Thursday. “It’s pretty full-circle to think that we’re getting the chance to open one of my bars, backing right up to the Ryman Auditorium, where other artists will look back on as the place they got their start too.”

The Whiskey Row management company signed the lease for the building at 400 Broadway on Thursday (January 7th) and will begin renovations in the coming weeks.

There’s just something so special about having young children experience the magic of Christmas, and Dierks Bentley enjoyed every single second of it with his family, that includes wife Cassady, daughters Evie (7) and Jordan (5) and son Knox (2). He says Knox is really starting to figure out what to do with his presents.

“I’ve had several friends that have told me that these are the years, the best years with kids and Santa Claus, and it really is. I’ve got a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and a two-year-old, and just the excitement around Christmas, the tree,” says Dierks. “My two-year-old just discovering how to do presents, taking off the paper. He didn’t really get that, [but] he gets it now. He has a full understanding what a present is, but the first present I gave him, he kind of just wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it. And the girls, you know, the Elf on a Shelf, and just all the lights, driving around and seeing the lights around town and stuff. It takes you right back when you were a kid.”

The family of five also made the trek from Nashville to Phoenix to visit family members, but some of them spent a little too much time in the bathroom. “Everyone got sick in my family. There’s a nasty bug going around, and a lot of vomit [laughs] in the Bentley household, but I avoided it. I think I’ve been on the road and around so many germs that I’m immune to it. Even considering that, it was still such a great time, and it’s special every year, so special.”

Dierks is set to co-host this year’s ACM Awards with pal Luke Bryan. The 51st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will air live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas April 3rd at 8pm ET on CBS.

Even though the sun was shining, it still didn’t warm the waters of Nashville’s Percy Priest Lake that Dierks Bentley and his friends took on for his annual New Year’s Day Polar Plunge. The “Riser” singer donned his “Drunk on a Plane” pilot’s hat and shades and along with his producer Brett Beavers and co-writer Jim Beavers, among others, decided to get rid of the old and “breathe in the new.” Check out the video of the his 14th plunge that Dierks shot with his go-pro below.

“Lake jump 2016. This is ridunkulous but we’re doing it anyway,” Dierks says in the video. “I don’t know why we do this, but we do it.”

Dierks, who will co-host this year’s ACM Awards with pal Luke Bryan, is nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Country Artist, which will be handed out on Wednesday (January 6th) on CBS, as well as a Grammy nod for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “The Driver” with Charles Kelley and Eric Paslay.

What are some of your favorite stars doing to welcome in the New Year? Many of them are working to help fans celebrate. Several artists have taken the time off around the holidays and will hit it hard when they return to the road in January. Some artists have resolutions and some are very helpful with their own hangover cures for those who imbibe too much on New Year’s Eve.

Chris Stapleton is set to entertain folks who are in Music City on New Year’s Eve. He’ll perform downtown as part of the Jack Daniels Bash. Kings of Leon and Kelsea Ballerini are also on the bill.

Little Big Town will ring in the New Year at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Dierks Bentley, who is the father of three children (Evie, Jordan, Knox), says you revert back to your childhood at Christmas when you start having a family of your own.

“Christmas didn’t lose any of its real meaning, as far as its religious meaning with Jesus’ birthday,” says Dierks. “But as far as like the whole tree and all of the Christmas spirit stuff, the secular stuff, it just kind of goes away, to be honest. But then you have a family, and all of a sudden it’s like I’m all Clark Griswold out there decorating the tree, putting lights up around the house, you know. So, all of those things that you did as a kid and appreciated as a kid, you get a chance to do over again when you have kids, because you kinda become one again.”

Growing up in Arizona, Dierks and his family didn’t have a white Christmas, but they created their own Christmas traditions in the desert. “I grew up in Arizona, so we didn’t have like a white winter kind of deal,” he says. “Once you experience that, it’s hard to go back and like celebrate Christmas in the desert but…for us, we would…me and my family and a couple other families would go out to the desert and bring a big turkey and just kinda have a cookout in the middle of the desert.”

Dierks received an early Christmas gift – he’ll co-host the ACMs with pal Luke Bryan.