Dierks Bentley has been rehearsing long and hard for his Sounds of Summer Tour that kicks off Friday night in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Arizona native also carefully deliberated on which acts to take out with him – ones that would “rally” the crowds and pump the fans up all night long. He finally decided on Kip Moore, Maddie & Tae and Canaan Smith.

“The first person you pick when you’re out there putting on a tour is the guy that’s going on right before you,” Dierks explains. “You want someone who’s gonna go out there and rally the troops. You want them to just tee ‘em up. You want someone that can maybe even beat ya. It kind of puts you on edge, and it makes you go out there just swinging even harder. It makes you sing harder, it makes you run around harder. It makes you go for antics, you know, dive offstage sometimes, pull someone up and shotgun a beer. So, you want someone in front of you that’s gonna test you. And Kip, man, he’s got a great voice, great energy, and I know he’s gonna go out there and attack ‘em every night, and that just makes us better.”

“Maddie & Tae…It’s an honor for me to have ‘em out; this is their first big tour to be on, so I get a chance to show ‘em how I think people should be treated out on the road,” says Dierks. “They just bring a real youthful energy to ‘em, and they’ll probably bring some different people to the show.”

Dierks and Canaan have known each other for a long time, and the two “dudes” enjoy hanging out with each other. “Canaan I’ve known for a long time, Canaan Smith, and he’s really been working hard on his sound and made a great record, and he just has great energy,” he says. “He’s just a fun person to be around. Not only is that important backstage, but that just somehow, for some reason, I’m not sure why, but it translates out to the people at the very top in the grass.”

Dierks is proud to have put this whole tour together, and he had a hand in just about every aspect of his show.

“This whole thing was put together by me, and from the second you walk in and listening to the music that’s playing on the speakers to when you’re driving away, or walking away, and you’re hearing the outro music, it’s all been thought through and we just want to make it the best tour to roll through that particular amphitheater this summer. That’s our goal.”