Brooks & Dunn: The Game's Just Getting Started

Brooks & Dunn: The Game's Just Getting Started

By Michael McCall

For weeks now, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn have fielded question after question about hosting "The 39th Annual CMA Awards" on Tuesday, Nov. 15 from 8-11 PM/ET on the CBS Television Network from Madison Square Garden in New York City. They meet each query with a sly grin.

"The one thing we've got going for us that no one expects anything from us," said Brooks, with trademark wicked glimmer flashing in his eyes. "People don't expect us to be funny. We're just talking heads. We're not comedians. We're a Country Music act that's been asked to introduce other Country Music acts. That's all."

His partner shakes his head, acting about as eager as a teenager getting ready for a trigonometry test. "I will be the first to tell you I am not at all comfortable at this," Dunn said. "I think the allure is that people know for a fact that we're going to walk out there uncomfortable. It creates tension right off the bat."

Brooks, getting into the groove now, continued: "Yeah, it's like watching someone skating on the ice who doesn't know how to skate. People watch and say, 'How long is it going to take for them to fall on their butts? This is going to be good!'"

Dunn, showing his poker face, added: "For us, it's just an issue of basic, primal survival."

Then they both crack up. These are guys who say they're not funny? Who say they're not comfortable as on-camera hosts? Don't buy it for a second.

One of the duo's many talents is downplaying their talents. Like all good male duos - from Abbott and Costello to Starsky and Hutch to Mel Gibson and Danny Glover - these two have mastered the pose of playing the fool while making the difficult look easy.

They may come off as the good-timing, honky tonk twins; just two rambunctious roughnecks out for a good time. But look past the swaggering front and you'll find plenty of soul, sensitivity and songwriting smarts.

"We are real competitive," Dunn said. "We see all these hot new acts coming up, and it motivates us to keep our level high. It inspires us."

Now, after 28 million albums sold and 23 No. 1 hits - as well as a whopping 14 CMA Awards, including the 1996 Entertainer of the Year honor - the duo that once graced the cover of a Corn Flakes box are making their best, most soulful recordings yet. Their "Deuces Wild Tour" which ran through Oct. 30, featured fellow duos Big & Rich and the Warren Brothers. Rather than relaxing into senior statesmanship, Brooks & Dunn have stepped up their game.

Dunn recalled a conversation he and Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry had while on tour together. "Why are you guys so dang competitive," Gentry asked Dunn. The veteran responded, "I told him I wasn't shooting for him. I'm just trying to keep my draw as sharp and fast as it possibly can be."

Their latest album, Hillbilly Deluxe, co-produced by the duo and Tony Brown, proves that they are indeed as sharp as ever - and that their songwriting is gaining even more depth as the years pass. "We feel we're doing our best work," Brooks said. "Something happened with Red Dirt Road that changed us for the better. We knew we were at a crossroads, and we needed to either raise the level or cut our losses. We took some chances, we dug deeper, and apparently something clicked."

Dunn agreed: "We rode that good-timin', honky tonk thing forever - maybe too long. Obviously it was working, but then you realize you can do more. There's more depth here that we're capable of. Whatever it was going to cost, we had to take that risk. We had to try and do something grittier."

After the success of the true-life tales of Platinum-selling Red Dirt Road, there was no turning back. "We feel our mandate now is to write meaningful stuff," Dunn said. "We've challenged ourselves to draw on our lives and to open up and tell the truth in our songs, and frankly it's been real exciting to take this step."

Brooks feels the same sense of inspiration. "I always felt I was a songwriter first and foremost, and now it's as if we're saying, 'OK, buddy, show me what you've got," he said. "Red Dirt Road was partly there, it was the beginning. But on Hillbilly Deluxe, we take it all the way. We weren't going to compromise or settle for anything less."

They still rock, of course. Brooks & Dunn rounded up writers Larry Willoughby, Hank DeVito, Radney Foster and Darrell Brown in addition to co-writing with Bob DiPiero, Craig Wiseman and Terry McBride. "Building Bridges" includes guest performances by Sheryl Crow and Vince Gill. The first single, "Play Something Country," written by Dunn and McBride, shows how Brooks & Dunn have been at the forefront of changing how guitars sound in mainstream Country Music.

"My dad used to use that phrase all the time," Dunn said. "I'd start into something that rocked a little, and he'd interrupt me and say, 'Play something Country!' This song is my revenge, because it has both Country and rock in it."

Brooks sees the song as part Rolling Stones, part Merle Haggard. "What we do isn't Southern rock," he said. "Everything we do has a real Country base to it. It's honky tonk music kicked up a bit. A lot of time when people think of rock associated with Country, they immediately think Lynyrd Skynyrd and that kind of thing. We dig that stuff, but that's not what we do. We take real Country Music and put some swagger behind it."

Also on the album are the Brooks vocal showcase "Her West Was Wilder," and two stellar Dunn co-writes, "Believe" and "She's About as Lonely as I'm Going to Let Her Get."

"Everything we write, and what we write about, comes out of being inspired by Country songwriters," Brooks said. "The same goes for our vocals. Ronnie's such a great, authentic Country singer. So when we take a song and rock it up, it still has that real Country thing to it. To me, that just feels good."

The album title Hillbilly Deluxe refers to the Southern blue-collar experience, and its work-hard-and-play-hard ethos.

"Hillbilly Deluxe is about people working hard all week, then breaking that chain that's holding them down and getting out and making the most of a Saturday night," Brooks said. "It's about a kind of life that's very much alive today. You can take that message downtown to a big city, or you can take it out in the country to smalltown U.S.A., and they'll all get it."

Which is why these two men, as representative of the Southwestern working class as musicians can get, savor the chance to strut their stuff in New York City during this year's CMA Awards.

"Man, I used to think New York was like going to the moon," Dunn said. "It was that foreign to me. But now I think New York isn't that different than any place in America. It's a big metropolis, for sure, but New Yorkers go through the same things as everyone else."

Brooks sees the ties between New Yorkers and Southerners as sharing some essential character traits. "Their mindset is that they put their cards on the table, and they shoot straight," he said. "Country people are like that too. So there's a lot of similarities as far as ideals, and the way they address things. You don't have to beat around the bush with New Yorkers, and I love that. I think they have a lot of pride, and Country people do too. What you see is what you get."

On the Web: www.brooks-dunn.com

November 15, 2005