Kenny Chesney
It sounds like a cliche, but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town, and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends, family, school, and church, and sports.Collection: Sports
The last couple of years I've been on an empty tank. And that's gotta change.Collection: Change
My mind is constantly going. For me to completely relax, I gotta get rid of my cell phone.
Music's supposed to come from the heart. I felt like that if it ever got mechanical, I was going to back away from it.
I love the fact that I can go out there on stage with a guitar and sing a song that means something to somebody.
It was satisfying to take a risk and see it pay off.
So many nights I'm up there on stage and I wish everybody out in the audience could see what I see and feel what I feel.
My fans reflect who I am.
I've always been drawn to the ocean.
Before, I was more concerned with getting on the radio, like many young artists.
You'd think I'd have been happiest in my life playing music in front of 50,000 people at Gillette Stadium. But let me tell you, it's an odd feeling to feel alone in the spotlight.
I had a notepad and I wrote down 30 things to make myself better just off the top of my head, and the next day I started to do that.
I don't think I ever feel sexy. I don't think that's for me to decide, if I'm sexy or not.
I think there is a part of life that I'm missing.
I work hard but I play hard.
First and foremost, I consider myself a songwriter.
It's not just in my industry... everything is so sensationalized that there's not a lot of heart and soul in a lot of things there used to be heart and soul in.
Football taught me how hard you had to work to achieve something.
Over the years I've had people tell me that they come to my show to escape.
Social topics may hit too close to home for people, but then again, if you pull a heartstring, then that's what country music is. It's not just songs about getting drunk and leaving your girl.
I like to rock and roll, but I'm a mushy guy, too. I want to be the guy that all the girls love and all the guys want to hang out with.
I have 120 employees on the road every day, and about 30 other employees off the road.
I want there to be a level of respect between everybody.
There's this idea that somebody's job could be more important than somebody else's, and to me, that's not true.
I'm so hands-on, from the color of my tour bus to what I eat for dinner at 5 or the way the lights are hung.
It's very hard for me to relax.
I do sell fun.
I'll admit I'm a workaholic.
In all the years that I've been doing this, I've never launched a tour and launched an album at basically the same time. Doing one of those things is enough!
I grew up in east Tennessee, and everybody knew everybody's business.
I've gotten to meet so many people who've inspired me as a human being.
I was standing onstage last year, and I felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. No matter how many people were out there, it all just felt like a blank sheet of paper.
When I was playing for tips in college, I felt a fire in my soul. I had the same principle of focus that I had learned playing football.
I needed to be pushed as an artist and as a person.
I think that in the last four or five years I've constantly struggled with the balance in my life.
Things that made me happy five, six years ago don't make me happy anymore.
I want to spend more time with my family.
I can say that I don't see myself with the foot on the gas pedal as hard as it's been down for 16 years.
I need to recharge creatively, and get off the clock of having to be somewhere just because, and having to keep juggling all these things.
I'm like a shark. I've got to be constantly moving.
This is a bit of curveball, but people who are really good kissers never have anything given to them.
People who can't kiss had everything given to them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm a helluva kisser.
I'm running a radio station.
I would like to be married and have kids. I would like to do that... Yes, I could see me settling down at some point.
There are only so many hours you can sit on the bus and watch TV or play basketball or whatever we do to pass the time before we go out onstage.
Me and my band and crew have always lived by the code: 'Work hard, play harder.'
My career was really odd, because I literally had a greatest hits album out and nobody knew who I was. They knew the songs, but they didn't know me.
I realized that I wanted to get better in every way. As a person, as a friend, as a songwriter, as a musician, as an artist, record producer, you name it.
I remember making up songs in my head.