Dierks Bentley will host his inaugural Seven Peaks Music Festival in Buena Vista, Colorado over Labor Day weekend, where he will be joined by more than a dozen artists, including Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Dan + Shay, LANCO, Kiefer Sutherland and more.
But for Bentley, his real reason for creating the three-day event was so he could spend more time in the state that inspired his recent The Mountain album.
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“Selfishly, I set it there just because it gives me another excuse to go back to one of my favorite states in the country,” the Arizona native tells PEOPLE.
“If nobody else comes, I’m going to have fun,” he continues. “That’s the goal — just me having fun and doing something really personal that has meaning for me.”
Bentley chose the ecclectic line-up, which includes his own cover band, Hot Country Knights, kicking off on Friday night with a ’90s-themed night, headlined by Clint Black.
“When you’re making a festival that has your name on it you definitely want to include all those elements that make it your own, so having a ’90s night is right up my alley—very me, very my band,” Bentley says. “It’s wild what’s going on with that genre of music. We’ll throw a few of those songs into our set and you’ve got kids — 16, 17-year-olds — that are singing along to these songs that were made before they were born. There’s definitely a resurgence in that area of country music and we’re really excited to be the only festival that has a designated night for that genre.”
The 42-year-old is doing much more than lending his name to the festival. Instead, Bentley is staying involved in every aspect of the outdoor experience, from making sure there are plenty of female port-a-potties, to having easy access to sunblock, ice and water.
“When you make a record your attention to detail isn’t so much for the fans sometimes as it’s more for you, just so you can sleep at night knowing that you gave it all you had,” Bentley notes. “Whether that’s the type of fonts you’re using on your credits, the way you say thank you, how you list your name as a songwriter on a song. I list my name last — just these little details matter to me. It’s the same with this festival.”
Bentley has invested plenty of his own time and resources into the Seven Peaks Festival, but he isn’t worried about recouping his investment.
“This isn’t about making money,” Bentley says. “This is about trying to create a really genuine, authentic, awesome experience for the fans.”
The “Burning Man” singer doesn’t know how successful the festival will be, but he can pretty much guarantee he will be tired by the time the final act exits the stage.
“I’m curious to see how I’m going to hold up because I’m planning on doing all the stuff during the day and then jumping up on a lot of the stages, including the Whiskey Row stage,” Bentley says. “I also wanna jam and hang out with the campers at the campground and try to get some sort of festival jam session tradition started.”
More information on the event can be found at SevenPeaksFestival.com.
Photo Credit: Getty images/Keith Griner
