Brooks and Dunn: a closer look

The country singers talk about, among other things, why they don’t write
together.

By JOHN GEROME

AP ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mick Jagger in a Stetson. That’s what Brooks & Dunn had in mind for their new album.

“This is where the Stones meet the cowboys,” Ronnie Dunn recalls saying when he told people about the disc.

The result, “Cowboy Town,” was released last week. It features sinewy electric guitars and enough tequila, cowgirls and leather boots to fill a Texas pool hall. The first single, “Proud of the House We Built,” is No. 4 on the Billboard country chart.

The record is the 10th studio release for Brooks & Dunn, who’ve sold 30 million albums with hits like “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” “My Maria,” “Only in America” and “Play Something Country.”

Dunn and Kix Brooks sat down with The Associated Press recently to talk about their new album, their career and why the second-to-last slot on a big concert bill is “prime-time real estate.”

Q. You two co-wrote most of the songs on this album, but you didn’t write any of them together.

Dunn: Kix and I hang out so much. I can’t imagine doing all the road stuff and all the business stuff we do together and then coming back and hanging out and spending that much time writing. There’s not enough time in the day.

Brooks: When we see each other on stage, most of the time it’s the first time we’ve seen each other all day. There’s still a little fire and energy up there. When we go to do a performance, it’s not like we’ve been staring at each other on the bus all day trying to make cat rhyme with hat. It takes a lot of energy to write songs.

Q. The album seems more uptempo for you. There’s only one ballad on it, the closing cut. Did you set out to rock harder this time?

Brooks: We had a lot of ballads that were contenders, but for us we think about playing live because we’ve toured every year since we’ve been together and that’s become a big part of our deal. When you have so many ballads, they’re just not going to make it to the show.

Dunn: We were trying to make a record that’s fun, that you can party to. We’re holding off that one ballad as much as we can, to stay on the party wagon.

Q. You’re open about your love for rock acts like the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. You even played a concert with the Stones last year. Do you feel more freedom to show those influences in your music today than when you were starting out?

Dunn: From day one we’ve been able to get away with a lot of that. In terms of radio, we seem to struggle more with classic country stuff more than anything. We get more resistance from radio with classic country than we do with the classic rock-influenced stuff.

Brooks: We rely heavily on radio telling us what’s going to get to first base. If you release a single to radio and you know they’re not going to play it, there’s no sense in releasing it as a single.

Dunn: You can slide right off into hip oblivion.

Q. People can still hear those songs when they listen to the CD.

Brooks: Obviously, that’s one of the fears and dangers of singles downloads, because traditionally you release the CD and you know people are going to hear the whole body of work instead of just grabbing what’s on radio. There’s a certain danger that we’re going to lose some of that coolness. That worries me.

Dunn: It’s hard because you have to play the game and adhere to the rules to some extent. Playing live is where you can stir it up a little bit.

Q. I think people get the impression that you’re a couple of party animals on the road. Are they right?

Brooks: It’s not nonstop nonsense. Both of us have been doing this long enough that we save it until after the show for sure. We’re not daytime rockers or anything.

Dunn: We’re accused of being boring sometimes by our wives (laughs). We’ve learned over the years to pace yourself.