Dierks Bentley on New Album ‘Black’: ‘I’ve Claimed the Right to Be Me’

Dierks Bentley just wants to be himself.

“I think I’ve claimed the right to be any version of me that I want to be,” he says, sitting in a studio on Nashville’s Music Row, nursing a second cup of coffee. The 40-year-old singer-songwriter is deep in the promotional cycle for his eighth studio album, Black, an ambitious doozy of a concept record that follows the ups, downs and bad decisions of a long-term relationship. Bentley was inspired to explore the more nebulous areas of love after watching the Showtime series The Affair, about the fallout from an extramarital dalliance. “[Black] is the other side of the story, the things we don’t talk about as much,” he says, “like the two people who got ditched so two people could live happily ever after.”

He’s keenly aware, and almost revels in the fact, that Black — its title nods to the maiden name of his wife of 10 years, Cassidy — may make some listeners uncomfortable, especially its guys-gone-wild first single, the two-week Number One “Somewhere on a Beach,” and the cheating ballad “I’ll Be the Moon.”

“That’s what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff. It makes people uncomfortable,” says Bentley. “Certainly, my own wife will be uncomfortable. Her name’s on it and people are going to go, ‘Ah, the Bentleys are having a hard time. ‘I’ll Be the Moon,’ huh? What’s going on there?'”

But listener engagement, however awkward, is the whole point, he contends. And, as Bentley reiterates, he’s earned it.

“I want to be free to be any version of me I feel like being. I don’t want to be McDonald’s that serves the same food every time. Although that is frankly what works in this business, being a brand. I’d rather be a brand that is known for ‘What’s he putting out next?’ Even though it may not be doing myself any favors with being as popular as I can be, it helps me continue to be interested and invested in what I do.”

Bentley came close to burning out near the end of the 2000s. A few years into his marriage, he struggled to balance the drifting troubadour persona he created in hits like “Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do” and “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)” with that of reliable husband and father. “I was really carrying the torch for the single dude and my whole mantra was about being single. It was like a train going full speed, [touring] 300 dates a year. I met my wife and I was like, ‘OK, jump on the train.’ But it doesn’t work that way. You have to get on a different train,” he says. “On some of my records in there, I was struggling to figure out who I was. The Feel That Fire record, I think, was where I reached the end of the road, where I needed to reboot. That’s where the bluegrass record came into play.”