The 47th Annual Academy Country Music Awards will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 1st, beginning at 8pm ET/delayed PT on CBS. Watch for performances by Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Dierks Bentley, Little Big Town and many more. We have been rolling out soundbites throughout the week with our nominees and performers leading up to Sunday night’s ACM Awards.
Dierks Bentley is nominated for Song of the Year at this year’s ACM Awards for his recent No. 1 single, “Home.” He co-wrote the song with Jim Beavers and Dan Wilson, who will also go home with a trophy for Song of the Year.
AUDIO: Dierks Bentley talks about performing on the ACM Awards, where he’s nominated for Song of the Year for “Home.”
Dierks (performing ACMs) OC: …good time. :18
“My favorite thing about music and why I’m in the music business is to play live music. I love being in front of people; that’s why I do this. It’s the fun part, but it’s also cool to get respect from other people in the business. So, I’m pretty excited about, you know? Any excuse to go to Vegas is a good one, and to be up for something is pretty cool. And hopefully, we’ll win something, but if not, we’ll still have a good time.”
AUDIO: Dierks Bentley talks about writing his ACM-nominated Song of the Year, “Home.”
Dierks Bentley (writing Home) 2 OC: …with this song. 1:06
“[So] we were hanging out for about an hour, getting to know each other, and my wife called, battery’s dead. Typical — that car of hers. I went over and jumped her car, came back over, and Brett and Dan had started this melody, and I thought it was beautiful. Dan had said something about America. He kept thinking, ‘This song feels like America.’ And I was like, ‘Aw man, writing a patriotic song is so difficult. Let’s not do that. Those songs are too hard to write.’ Brett said something about ‘Home,’ and then I think I said something like, ‘the place we all call home.’ Maybe we could write a song about America that’s not overly in your face about it, you know, something that everyone could grab a hold of and feel inspired by. The recession was in full board at this point a year ago, the political nature of this country was as bad as it’s ever been with, basically, Washington D.C. being turned into a football game between two sides and not caring about the fans, the voters, the public at all, just their own internal thing going on there. It’s about now, but it’s a little bit of a history lesson too about what we’ve been through. And at the end of the day, I think it’s inspiring and hopeful, and it’s been a real blessing of a song and one that none of us really could take too much credit for, just inspiration hit. You write that many songs over the course of a year, you might get one of those moments, and we got one with this song.”
AUDIO: Dierks Bentley expresses his hopes for his recent No. 1 hit “Home,” which is nominated for ACM Song of the Year.
Dierks Bentley (hopes for Home) OC: …things right. 1:21
“This song is written in a way that is opened-ended as far as what they want to walk away with. I mean, I think it’s obvious it’s a song about our country, about the ups and downs and the scars we have in our past. But at the end of the day, no matter what side of the fence you’re on, where you stand on certain issues, where you come from, your background, you have to walk through the front door of your house every day, this is our house, this is our home, this is our one country. There’s not another one you can go to. I hope in some sense it can bring people together and find more things in common than we don’t and hope for the people that are going through tough times that so many people are right now with the economy. There’s certainly still a lot of tough times ahead, and they see that we’ve overcome so much as a country in the past and there’s no reason why we can’t overcome these things again and really be the number one, the best country in the world as far as a place to have these freedoms and to raise your family and to pass something on to the next generation. Just help people feel inspired and look back and look at the country, from just a long term perspective, not just this day, this week, this month, this year, but just the history of this country and all the people that came before us and sacrificed their lives for us. We’re standing on their shoulders and we need to honor that, and I think the best way to honor that is come together and make things right.”
