Dierks Bentley scored three CMA nominations this year, including Album of the Year for Home, as well as Single and Song of the Year for the title track, “Home,” which he co-wrote with Dan Wilson and Brett Beavers.
The 46th annual CMA Awards will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 1st at 8pm ET on ABC.
AUDIO: Now that he’s a husband and a father, Dierks Bentley says his music, especially the songs included on the album Home, reflects a more well-rounded artist.
Dierks Bentley (Home album portrays real life) OC: …audience out there. :55
“I think if you’re trying to make great country music, I think we’re all trying to make the best records we can and write the best songs and put them together in a way that’s really a cohesive record, you really have to go inside and write about what’s happened to you in your life, at that moment. For me, it’s not like going from one chapter to the next, it’s just, the book keeps evolving. It’s all a part of the same story. The road, the lifestyle, the partying, the fun and just that energy you feel when you walk on stage – it’s like always being a teenager up there. You’re still bouncing around like you’re 17 years old. But life for me, I’ve gone through first, second, third, fourth gear. I’m moving up the gears and having a chance to experience more of life and having a couple kids is an amazing experience. Trying to be honest as a person, as a songwriter, and stuff like that is going to make its way into the music. It’s a big part of my life, so those songs get added to the playlist and part of the record, part of who I am and the live show. I think it just helps, hopefully, to make you a more complete singer/songwriter, a more complete artist and gives you more material to draw from when you’re up there on stage singing to relate to your audience out there.”
AUDIO: Dierks Bentley talks about writing “Home” in the days following the tragic Tucson, Arizona shooting in 2011.
Dierks Bentley (Home & Gabby) OC: …terrible incident. 1:21
“I remember that day so well that Gabby Giffords was shot and the Tucson, Arizona shooting, that terrible, terrible thing. Four days later I was writing with Brett Beavers who I write a lot of songs with and a new guy I had never written with before named Dan Wilson, who’s had a lot of success in different genres of music. I remember going to that writing appointment…We had 2 days planned so we could use this first day to kind of talk about some things and get to know each other…And that day something happened. It was a real magical moment. Something came together where a melody and an idea came out of nowhere and all of us had our inputs. For me, that was weighing heavily on my mind, big time. And it happened that at the same time there was a lot of chatter on TV that had been going on for a while, and there was a lot of really negative stuff back and forth and it really kind of bothers me, and always will when people try to divide the country into two sides. There’s over 300 million people living here. How could there just be two teams? It would be like the NFL having two teams. Like there’s the NFC and AFC – no, there’s several teams. There are several different groups of people but in the end we’re all Americans. I think that’s the most important description of all of us and I think we wanted to write a song that really captured the spirit of this country – the good and the bad. I think it’s an amazing song. I’m really proud of that song and I think to see Gabby make the recovery that she’s made is pretty miraculous. I’m so happy for her and her family and friends. I think it’s a very positive thing to come out of such a terrible incident.”
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.”