Dierks Bentley Went ‘Out On a Limb’ With ‘The Mountain’

Dierks Bentley is excited about his upcoming album, The Mountain, out June 8, even if he is a bit nervous. The new set of tunes is a reflection of both the good and the bad that happened in the previous year, combining his love of bluegrass and today’s country music, and void of any carefree songs, like his previous “5-1-50” or “Somewhere On a Beach.”

“The whole experience was transformative for me, and it was going out on a limb with a little idea and following it to the end,” Bentley tells Nashville’s Tennessean. “It was a really magical experience. But I know we’re in Nashville, Tennessee, and everybody is making records. It’s hard for me to balance the specialness of this album with overthinking my overall experience in this town.”

Bentley wrote and recorded The Mountain in Colorado, finding inspiration in stepping away from the Music City machine and going back to nothing but his love of creating music.

“It was, ‘Let’s go to Telluride and make a record,’” Bentley recalls. “Then everyone nourishes it until it gets to a place where you can dig in on it. It is special for us. I feel like last year was a really heavy year for country music and something about being in the mountains, that felt really freeing and really good. I feel like it was needed for me and hopefully this music is helpful for my fans in the same way, too.”

The Arizona native says his fans deserve much of the credit for the songs on The Mountain, especially the ones who have taken time to talk with him at one of his shows.

“I’ve spent three hours a day before the show just hanging out with the fans in some different form whether it’s an acoustic show or several meet and greets,” Bentley shares. “The stories you hear, everybody’s climbing some sort of mountain, right? Everybody’s just finding a way to put one foot in front of the other and just make it out to this concert tonight; the importance of that show to help them on their own journey, their own climb.

“So especially after this [past] summer,” he continues, “it seemed like it was a hard year for a lot of people, not only in our country music community but just in general, and the idea of that mountain that everyone’s climbing really resonated with me.”

Bentley will return to Colorado in September to host the inaugural three-day Seven Peaks Music Festival, with performances by Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Elle King, LANCO, Del McCoury, Sam Bush and The Cadillac Three, among others. More information can be found by visiting SevenPeaksFestival.com.

Bentley will kick off his Mountain High Tour on May 17 in Columbia, Md. Dates can be found on his website.

Photo Credit: Instagram/dierksbentley