Four years... songs camps... good friends... crazy great musicians... new collaborators... writing songs to distill life, making music for all the reasons. Kenny Chesney didn’t see it coming, didn’t set out to make an album. Instead, he’s spent the time since the world shut down playing music with friends, scraping bits of life into lyrics and melodies, listening to songs he loved and recording when the moment struck with longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon. After all that, BORN is born.
“I can’t call it a process, because we never set out to make a record, just explore songs and moments for the sake of music,” Chesney offers. “All of sudden, time had passed and somehow we had all these songs that looked like different pieces of who I – and just about everyone in No Shoes Nation, too – am.
“It wasn’t a master plan. There was no theme we’re singing about that holds it together. But if you listen to all 15 songs, you’ll get the high energy fun, chasing adventures, don’t let people get you down piece and you’ll get the more reflective thinking about someone who’s died, the person you know you shouldn’t call emotions that have always been in the music, too.”
Whether the rush of “Just To Say We Did,” the chasing adventure “One More Sunset,” the sweeping drama of “One Lonely Island,” or the naughty no-strings delight of “Guilty Pleasure,” as well as the driving “Long Gone” and chilled philosophizing of “This Too Shall Pass,” BORN offers a bunch of feel good to make a crazy world feel better. On the other end of the spectrum, Chesney gets contemplative with “Come Here, Go Away,” the passage of time healer “The Way I Love You Now,” the pensive female freedom of “Top Down” and the album closing toast to those who’ve passed away “Wherever You Are Tonight.”
“Making music to make music, suddenly there’s room for a few road trip songs like ‘One More Sunset’ or ‘Just To Say We Did,’ songs that sound like me and my buddies growing up,” says the eight-time Entertainer of the Year. “And you don’t worry as much about having a few songs that are more introspective, or looking at the tough spots of letting go like ‘Thinkin’ Bout’ and ‘Come Here, Go Away,’ which everyone’s lived through.
“When you listen to ‘Born,’ there’s a whole lot of truth about living, life, the big questions and what we’re all trying to experience. That banjo out front really throws you into the song, which feels great. I love a lyric that throws out all the options, but it never actually tells you what to do. Here it comes down to one existential truth, no matter who you are or what you’re chasing: ‘one thing’s for certain, we’ve all been living since the day we were born.’”
After all these months, No Shoes Nation can finally unpack all the moods and moments that make BORNChesney’s most far-reaching album to date. With “Take Her Home” cresting the Top 10, three layers of rehearsals under way for the Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour and Chesney on “Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist” this weekend, the time has arrived for new music to set the tone for another summer of tailgates and stadiums for No Shoes Nation.
