Luke Bryan Says ‘American Idol’ Makes Him Want to ‘Shut His Brain Off’

Luke Bryan will soon head back to a judge’s chair on American Idol, where he is returning for a second time, along with Lionel Richie and Katy Perry, for Season 17 of the reality TV talent show. The singer, who also just announced his Sunset Repeat Tour, says Idol is taxing on him in an entirely different way than touring.

“The road tires you out in this way: when you’re running up and down stadiums and doing all that, you wake up the next day and you feel like you ran through a stadium,” Bryan told ABC News Radio. “And when you’re out on Idol, we notice you get done and you just want a nice glass of wine just to kind of shut your brain off, because you’ve been concentrating for 12 hours on making the right decisions with these kids.”

The Georgia native gets tired from both roles, but one pulls on his heart just a little bit more.

“They’re both equally exhausting, because touring is physically [exhausting],” Bryan explained. “Idol, when we start falling in love with these kids … And with our auditions, we just did three 12-hour days. It’s like you’re taking the SAT every day.”

Bryan’s Sunset Repeat Tour announcement was welcome news for fans, who weren’t sure how much time the country music hitmaker would spend on the road in 2019.

“We knew when I took on [American] Idol that it was going to take up a lot of my off-season time,” Bryan told iHeartRadio in 2018. “Next year, I’m probably going to trim a few dates off the tour. I just kind of need to settle in that mold of not doing 100 shows a year and scale back a hair.”

“I’ve got to start looking at like baseball schedules because my boys are getting to where, in the spring, they are playing baseball,” he continued. “They are old enough to know that Dad’s halfway across the world.”

American Idol might be a lot of work, but exhaustion aside, Bryan is eager to return for another season of the show.

“Second season of Idol – I’m more excited this year because I know what to expect,” Bryan explained. “I’m not going to be scared the whole time. The fact that me and Lionel and Katy and Ryan [Seacrest] we have one season under our belt, we know how much we can have fun with one another. We know how serious the contestants take it. We’re excited. I know we’re more excited than last year, just because we know what to expect. It’s gonna be a lot of surprises and a lot of fun.”

American Idol premieres on Sunday, March 3, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Bryan’s Sunset Repeat Tour, which includes Cole Swindell and Jon Langston as opening acts, kicks off on May 31. Find dates at LukeBryan.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/ David Livingston