Dierks Bentley’s The Mountain debuts at No. 1 on the country album chart this week. The collection of songs, which includes chart-topping hit “Woman, Amen,” sold more than 102-thousand copies (including streams) to bow at the top of the country chart and No. 3. This marks Dierks’ seventh No. 1 Country Album debut and highest debut in his career, beating his previous best, Black, at 101,300 in 2016.
“I think the unifying thread that runs through The Mountain would be just happiness and positivity, just a real kind of vibe of being grateful in the moment that you’re in, you know? The album really started off just as a tiny idea of something to do with the West. I wasn’t sure if it was a sonic idea or some sort of lyric or an overall vibe, and I didn’t really know where to go,” says Dierks. “Tthe album kind of wrote itself to be that story of just songs like ‘Living,’ ‘Can’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘The Mountain,’ just the vibe of just being really grateful and inspired by your surroundings and not just the mountain vibe, but the surroundings on the road too. The people that I meet on the road that are climbing their own personal mountains and the stuff they’re trying to overcome. I hear so many stories backstage at the Meet-and-Greets, and I was unknowingly inspired by those stories, and I think that gives the whole Mountain [album] a great metaphor between the actual mountains and the mountains people are pursuing in their own lives.”
Dierks heads back to where the album got started – the Telluride Bluegrass Festival – on Wednesday (June 20th), followed by a performance during Chicago’s Country Lake Shake on Saturday (June 23rd).
Audio / CUT 28: Dierks Bentley talks about a unifying thread that runs throughout his new album, The Mountain.
DownloadDierks Bentley (unifying thread in The Mountain) OC: …their own lives. 1:22
“I think the unifying thread that runs through The Mountain would be just happiness and positivity, just a real kind of vibe of being grateful in the moment that you’re in, you know? The album really started off just as a tiny idea of something to do with the West. I wasn’t sure if it was a sonic idea or some sort of lyric or an overall vibe, and I didn’t really know where to go. I just put it on the backburner and kept just doing what we were doing which was touring nonstop. I had some shows up there. I played a show, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June (2017) and it was just so inspiring and so fun, and I kinda had the idea to come back and write there and I did. I came back in August, then I came back and recorded there. That initial little idea I had, I thought I wasn’t going to work on that all, but it turns out I was just kind of in a back door way. And the album kind of wrote itself to be that story of just songs like ‘Living,’ ‘Can’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘The Mountain,’ just the vibe of just being really grateful and inspired by your surroundings and not just the mountain vibe, but the surroundings on the road too. The people that I meet on the road that are climbing their own personal mountains and the stuff they’re trying to overcome. I hear so many stories backstage at the Meet-and-Greets, and I was unknowingly inspired by those stories, and I think that gives the whole Mountain [album] a great metaphor between the actual mountains and the mountains people are pursuing in their own lives.”
