It was a long road to Gravel & Gold, Dierks Bentley‘s tenth album, which arrives Friday.
His last studio effort, The Mountain, came out way back in June of 2018, though he’s since topped the chart with “Gone” and “Beers on Me.”
Dierks thought he was ready to make his record in Nashville in March 2021, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. He admits COVID testing and wearing masks killed the studio vibe that’s so important. He even hung a picture of Buck Owens, hoping it would help, to no avail.
Six months later, he tried again with producer Luke Dick. Even though they were producing “B+, A-” material, Dierks walked away knowing what he wanted.
“I started realizing at that point that what this whole idea of a 10th album meant to me is I wanted it to be a collection of everything I’d done…” he reflects. “[It] should have that Luke Dick stuff, but it should also have the bluegrass and the nineties and the traditional.”
Then, the third time worked.
“It’s just a feel thing, you know? It’s like when I sip whiskey, I can’t tell you all the different flavors. I just know good or bad or great or ‘Wow!'” he laughs.
“You just know when it’s right,” Dierks continues. “And that third time around… we’d been grinding hard enough, been back in town long enough, had a vision for what I wanted to say, it just kind of all came together.”
On Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, you can livestream Dierks’ Gravel & Gold performance from the Country Music Hall of Fame via Twitch channel 3point5.
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