Blake Shelton Recalls Awkward Conversation With Garth Brooks Before Recording 'Dive Bar'

Blake Shelton is currently singing on Garth Brooks' latest single, "Dive Bar." Brooks was inspired to ask Shelton to join Brooks on the song after watching Shelton perform "God's Country" at the 2019 ACM Awards, although Shelton admits he was anything but cool when Brooks reached out to him.

"Yeah, Garth, that's still weird for me to say," Shelton admitted to PopCulture.com and other media. "He reached out to me back in April, just a day or two after the ACM Awards. We had a telephone conversation; I won't say it was a disastrous conversation, but it's awkward a little bit because he's Garth, and I'm the guy that wanted to be a country singer because I saw his first television special. So that's an awkward, in my mind, conversation because everything I said sounded something like, 'Hey you remember that time you sang 'Friends in Low Places'? Literally that's all I thought.'

"At some point in the conversation, he said, 'Man, I don't know if you meant it or not, and don't tell me if you didn't, but the way you sang God's Country on the ACM awards...'" he continued. "He was very complimentary in what he said to me, and I told him, 'Man, I think you just mistook me for trying to hit some of those notes as passion.'"

Shelton might be one of the reigning superstars of country music, but he was far from a celebrity during his conversation with Brooks.

"My fan club, they would've laughed in my face," Shelton admitted. "But anyway, by the end of the conversation, he didn't say that that's why though, he just said, 'I got this song that I'd like for you to listen to and maybe if you like it then we can record it together.' Which I literally I think I said, 'Buddy, I haven't heard it, but I'll do it.'"

Shelton knows he would likely have an entirely different career if not for the influence of Brooks early in his life.

"He just tapped back into that mid-'90s stuff when I was deciding I wanted to be a country singer and all I could imagine was being the next Garth Brooks," Shelton told The Tennessean. "He didn't need me on this, but I'm not going to tell him that."

"Dive Bar" will be on Brooks' upcoming new album, Fun. A release date for the record has yet to be announced.

Photo Credit: Getty images / Terry Wyatt