I mean, you have to talk about it because it's a collaboration that I always thought should happen, and now it happened.

Yeah, well, Signs being my ninth album, it makes me reflect on 22 years of album making in Nashville.

And I think about...

even my college years and going through college and moving here, and now nine albums later, I've got this album called Signs that's been out.

And it's with me, you know, you start building the albums, you write songs, you start finding songs.

And you start putting this thing together.

And some of the first songs that we knew were going to be on the album were obviously Down Goes the Whiskey.

How did you get that all rolling? I mean, this is something you're doing every year now.

We're also not gonna question you saying it's great.

[laughs] Well, I, one of the best memories, you'll love this memory, Bobby.

Um, I always...

I was, me and Jason Aldean were really, really morphing into dear friends.

I had been out on the road with him for, um, quite a while, and I had computed in my mind to turn the corner to superstardom, 'cause Jason had done it.

He hit 'em, he hit us with, like, three giants in a row, and the first one was She's Country.

I think the second one was My Kind of Party, and I don't know if they were in that order, and then the third one was Big Green Tractor, and he hit 'em back to back, and I was on the road, and I watched that go on.

[laughs] It's great.

We have to ask, how is Lionel doing?

We were all thinking the same thing when he had a little trouble with the first show.

He had some more trouble.

I got a call from Lionel couple weeks ago, and we just chatted it out, and he's doing great.

Just been working hard.

What's amazing about Lionel is he can fly to one country, sit a piano, do a show.

in there, right? Your new single is out, Country and She Knows It.

Right.

We're also not gonna question you saying it's great.

[laughs] Well, I, uh, one of the best memories, you'll love this memory, Bobby.

Um, I always, I was, me and Jason Aldean were really, really morphing into dear friends.

I had been out on the road with him for, um, quite a while, and I had computed in my mind to turn the corner to superstardom, 'cause Jason had done it.

He hit 'em, he hit us with, like, three giants in a row, and the first one was She's Country.

I think the second one was My Kind of Party, and I don't know if they were in that order, and then the third one was Big Green Tractor, and he hit 'em back to back, and I was on the road, and I watched that go on.

So when I hit with Country Girl, Shake It for Me, my thought process was, "All right, I got the first one to get toward hopefully superstardom.

[laughs] It's great.

Oof

...

I'm, I'm...

But man, it's just been, um, you know, the dopamine and endorphins and stuff of watching your child go out there and call the plays and run the offense.

And, uh, it was, it's been pretty, uh, I mean-

... is next level too, man

... well, so what, what people may not know is, uh, it, it was an amazing night, but Chris Stapleton actually wrote, uh, one of my songs, Drink a Beer, that was one of really historically one of my most like, um, emotional songs.

And this was before Chris became Chris, and he actually performed it with me, uh, at the CMA Awards as...

What happens when the cameras are off? Are you having that much fun

together? A lot of times when the cameras are off, we're on our phones showing pictures of what our children are doing, especially Carrie and I.

And, you know, it's just...

It's just a lot of fun.

I mean, when you work with people that you have a common goal, we check our egos at the door.

We're there for the kids to try to put them in a situation where they can go on and chase their music dreams.

And Carrie knows... all of the uh she knows all the benefits of that so she's even more uh focused certainly uh maybe than me but anyway but she you know it's been um it's it's a it's a ride watching these kids and you know tackle their dreams special

and you've got this new album coming out signs what do fans need to know about that what should they need

Well, the three of y'all, because I got to say, when you all are here, the three judges from American Idol, you know, on camera, but even off camera, you guys are so tight, so close.

Yeah, I mean, the dynamic of us as judges, I mean, right off the bat when Carrie Underwood came over, we just, we started a little private text chain.

But we just have fun with one another.

And it's a fun job.

It's like watching you doing the Family Feud stuff.

That stuff is so fun.

And then on Idol, it's the same thing.

Oh, wow.

Can you get me into the writer's room and how that song came about?

Yeah, so the guys that – you know, the boys I wrote that with rolled into the house.

I've got my songwriting room, you know, I've got my songwriting room right there with my piano and a lot of guitars and some amps and stuff like that.

So they rolled in, and I've had a lot of success with – chase and and uh well not not chase but uh with uh mcgill well yeah i mean mcgill dragstrom and josh thompson and they had really written uh they kind of had a lot of this chorus done and when they they sang the chorus i mean man it hit me like i i totally got it right off the bat And I kind of jumped right in, and we – I love – they had a pretty good bit of the first verse and a pretty good bit of the chorus written, but then second verse and even the bridge and tying it all together, you know, but I was really proud of it.

You know, a lot of songwriters, when we know we're going to sit down and we're kind of rounding out an album, you know, they'll come in with several songs that they think that'll – Songs that they think will work for what I want.

And I'd say, man, you know, 2% of the time I take the bait.

But on this one, man, I just loved the whole thing.

This being your ninth, man, is there a number? How many you got left in you?

And he's brand new to it.

He is, but he knows.

He's brand new to camps, and he's wanting to see how he's going to compete with the other boys.

He did good in Atlanta, top talent in the world.

We go to New Orleans, and there's, like, 150 quarterbacks day one.

Well, Knock Lane, uh, Knox Kiffin's there.

[smacks lips] And day one, we can tell that Bo is throwing it.

Mm

Mm-hmm

... through these kids.

And, and we have these kids that come in and, um- Uh, they've been sleeping in their car, and they've dealt with homelessness, and they've dealt with abandonment, and-

Oh

... and so many elements of life.

And, and then they're laying their dreams out there for us, and then we have to tell 'em, uh, yes or no.

And then we have to tell 'em, "Yes, but you need to do this, and you need to get better here."

But some people throw it back in.

That happens too.

Sometimes that fish complains a lot.

Sometimes that fish is very judgmental.

Sometimes that fish doesn't like any of your friends.

And yeah, sometimes you've got to reach down in the live well and pitch that old girl back to the lake.

Excuse me.

I didn't mean that that way.

Do you, do you remember a moment where you guys, where you were like, "All right, this guy's gonna actually be my friend"?

Well, I, one of the moments was I had won an ACM A- Award or got nominated, and I was touring with him.

I think I was up for Best New Artist, and I told him I got nominated.

I mean, he flew up off the couch, just hugged me, fired up, high-fiving, like, like, like that good news happened to him.

[sniffs] And I, I remember thinking, "Man, this, this is a, this is, this is what it's about.

This guy's a good dude." And, and since then we, you know, we've, we've, we've done this...

[sniffs] We've done these careers separately and together, and we've done nothing but try to have fun with this stuff.

Tell me about Songs About Us and what attracted you to it and how you got the news and decided, you know.

Here's Luke Bryan at number four.

What's been fun through the years is every night before a show, um, It's not the thing to do, but I will do a little two or three song acoustic set for like VIPs that have bought the tickets for this little VIP experience.

And I know better than to do it, but every now and then I'll ask the crowd for any request.

Well, they always request some random damn song from... you know, one of my first albums.

And then we'll go down the wormhole, which is fun because it's not me just doing my standard little couple songs.

And so once I see the lyric and remember the melody, then it'll start popping back.

But like, for instance, if I know that...

Okay, I want this story about the first time it was even... an option or a conversation that you might be on American Idol? Like the first call you get, who is it? Like, wait, what? Like, I want to know about that.

You might just be a holiday hoarder.

I'm a collector.

We'll use the C-word instead.

Here's just part of it.

This boy, he was nine years old.

He looked up at me and he had these big tears in his eyes and he looked at me.

He goes, "Mr.

Luke, I lost my sister a couple of months ago and I wanna know how you get through life." And when that nine-year-old, Anderson, when that nine-year-old told me that, it was ...

Beautiful

...

in my nieces that are my sister.

I was in St. Louis, um, when I found out she had passed away, and it was much, it was much the same situation of me just sobbing uncontrollably.

I remember when I, when I got to my nieces', I just kept screaming I was, I was sorry to them.

I kept saying I was sorry.

And they were, they were too little at the time to understand that I was just telling them I was sorry because I couldn't believe, I was so sorry for them that they were gonna have to go through this life without the beautiful human being that she was.

It was beautiful.

How long until you could get that and play a full band on stage?

Oh, I would probably be able to do that, what Darius did.

Really? Now, I can go back.

If I get a couple listens, I've always, thank God, my level of being able to pull, I just need one or two listens and it'll all come back.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm not assuring I wouldn't blank midway, but... what's been fun through the years is every night before a show, um, It's not the thing to do, but I will do a little two or three song acoustic set for like VIPs that have bought the tickets for this little VIP experience.

And I know better than to do it, but every now and then I'll ask the crowd for any request.

Well, they always request some random damn song from... you know, one of my first albums.

Okay, I want this story about the first time it was even... an option or a conversation that you might be on American Idol? Like the first call you get, who is it? Like, wait, what? Like, I want to know about that.

you growing up?

Yeah, I mean, I think naturally I entered in, and when you look at my first two albums, it was very, very, I mean, fiddle-heavy, steel guitar-heavy, country songs.

And I had, you know, I think...

I had a lot of those aspects of kind of some classic country stuff in those first two albums, and then kind of morphed into, as I was playing clubs, college bars, and watching...

I mean, I was a direct reflection of... watching college kids right when I got off stage and I would play all of the big covers.

I'd play, you know, I'd play Fishing in the Dark and You Never Even Call Me by My Name and Skinner and all the Brooks and Dunn stuff and Tracy Lawrence and we'd play, even, you know, like we would learn like modern, like Gary Allen songs at the time, songs about rain.

And we were playing these things.

Okay, I want this story about the first time it was even... an option or a conversation that you might be on American Idol? Like the first call you get, who is it? Like, wait, what? Like, I want to know about that.

Yeah, I

mean, year one, I hosted it by myself, and that was another one of those situations where... um you get the call and you're like wow i got the call on this and i can't believe i'm in a situation where i can host the cmas so yeah we um roll in year one did it by myself and then they reached out um the the big joke was you know you did great you did so great um Yeah, you're going to do it with Peyton Manning next year.

I'm like, I did.

Did I do it anyway? But so Peyton and I started and then obviously Laney Wilson hosted with us last year.

But Peyton and I, we've had a great time doing that together.

And through that, Peyton and I have kind of.

Um, we try to do a couple of golf trips a year and, and Peyton has, uh, had me, uh, you know, on some golf trips with Eli and Cooper and man, you know, when you're on a golf trip with those guys, it's pretty, pretty fun stuff.

One, the first part of the question, did you ever envision yourself there? But two, what was your aha moment? Like, I've made it.

No, it's good.

So my business manager called me years ago, 2011, and one of his, one of his clients in town had a farm that was coming on the market.

I had just started, uh, getting to where I was making a little money and could start thinking about a farm and a place to kinda settle.

And, uh, we, um, found 100, it's about 150 acres about 20 minutes south of Nashville, literally cow pastures and-

You lost your brother.

Right, I lost my brother, and then that sent me down this path.

And then, um, I meet Caroline and we kinda date on and off through college, but it wasn't time and we kinda broke up at the end of college.

And then it was five and a half years till we got back together.