Dierks Bentley on New Album ‘Black’: ‘I’ve Claimed the Right to Be Me’
“I had some longtime fans say, ‘I’ve always wanted Dierks to be successful, but I hate this song that’s doing it for him'”
That bluegrass record, 2010’s magnificent Up on the Ridge, reconnected Bentley with his musical roots (he says he’s always thinking about recording another). A longtime picker and a staple at Nashville’s bastion of string-music, the Station Inn, Bentley was reborn with Ridge, an introspective album that featured minimal production, organic instruments and Dylan and Kristofferson covers. It was the sound of a successful country-radio artist stepping away from the game and, as can be near impossible in Music City, making the album he wanted and needed to make. His full-lengths since then, 2012’s Home and 2014’s Riser, represent Bentley sure of his place in the genre.
Which is what made “Somewhere on a Beach,” the first taste of Black, such a head-scratcher. On the surface, and out of context of the rest of the album, it’s a vacuous hook-up song, with schoolyard rhymes like “she got a body and she’s naughty” and “I’m gettin’ sun, gettin’ some.” Even Bentley’s most passionate followers were wary.
“I had some longtime fans say, ‘I’ve always wanted Dierks to be successful, but I hate this song that’s doing it for him,'” Bentley recalls with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Thanks a lot.’ But I get it.”
Listen to “Somewhere on a Beach” in sequence on Black, however, and the inclusion of the song (written by a team of five songwriters; Bentley not among them) is not only validated, but makes perfect sense.
“It’s the hinge point of the whole album,” he says, explaining where the song’s character is at in the arc of the record. “He’s got the new girl, he’s got it going on, he thinks he’s found the thing he’s looking for — but he hasn’t, and you find that out later on. It’s a critical song on the album.”
Although Black has a number of personal connections to Bentley, it’s not entirely autobiographical. For starters, he and Cassidy are happily married, with three children. “She’s like, ‘Where are the love songs for me?’ But there aren’t any love songs. . . this isn’t the ‘happily ever after’ album,” he says. “I owe her a lot of credit for not only letting me be personal, but go beyond that and write [and record] stuff that is not personal but people might think is personal.”
Like “I’ll Be the Moon,” in which Bentley plays the part of the side piece. “I don’t wanna be a liar / I don’t wanna be a fool / I don’t wanna be a secret / But I will, if you want me to,” goes the chorus, written by Heather Morgan, Matt Dragstrem and Ryan Hurd. Although originally conceived as being from the standpoint of a guy, Bentley recast the song as a duet with Maren Morris.
“I’ve always listened to that song as a one-sided view of someone that you can’t really have. I thought it was brilliant to show the girl’s perspective,” says Morris, who first heard the track a year earlier when Hurd played her his demo. “It was one of my favorite songs just because it’s so heartbreaking and it’s so beautiful.”