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Wednesday, 30 July, 2008 10:42 PM
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Luke Bryan
- On Tour With Kenny Chesney
PHOTO
BY JASON RZUCIDLO / ©AMERICAJR.com
Luke
Bryan performed at the Downtown Hoedown in 2007. Now, he is opening
for Kenny Chesney this Saturday in Detroit.
Luke Bryan
is currently on the road with Kenny Chesney on his 2008 Poets &
Pirates tour. The singer who’s best known for the song “All
My Friends Say” is the opening act for the tour.
Bryan was
born and raised in Leesburg, Georgia. He attended Georgia Southern
University where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and
worked on his singing and songwriting skills.
“Being
out there with Chesney is the highlight of my career,” he
said. “It’s been really one of the coolest things I’ve
ever been a part of and to see the conformity of country music and
just how many people come out and support it is pretty incredible.
Watching how he entertains is kinda how I get to learn from the
best. It’s what you dream of as an entertainer and a singer.”
Bryan always
dreamed of performing at Soldier Field in Chicago. He’s had
the opportunity to do just that while being a part of the 2008 Poets
& Pirates Tour.
“To
be able to go out there and stand in the middle of it and sing my
music was really one of the highlights of my career,” the
country music singer said. “That’s something I’ll
never forget. It’s just a big party. It’s fun, it’s
exciting.”
Why does
Kenny Chesney sell out arenas year after year?
“I
saw an interview that he did one time and he sells fun better than
anybody,” Bryan explains. “Anytime you come to one of
his shows, so many people are just having the time of their lives.
People work hard all week long and they spend all their money on
these things. So this is their chance to come out and have some
fun and put all their troubles behind them and kinda let their hair
down. He just kinda set the tone for it. I think people have bought
into it. That’s what the beauty of country music is. You work
hard, build your fans up and they never let you down. They keep
coming back for more.”
Bryan’s
latest single is “Country Man” off his I’ll
Stay Me album that was released in 2007. It is currently climbing
up the charts.
“Well,
it was a song that I wrote with some good friends of mine, Jason
Matthews and Galen Griffin,” the singer said. “The song
turned up to be something that was pretty fun. Obviously, for it
to become a single, we’re certainly excited about that. The
main thing about the song was just having a lot of fun.”
He recently
won the Breakthrough Songwriter Award at the 20th Annual Row Awards.
“That
was a pretty neat honor,” he said. “To be recognized
by your peers and subscribers of a country music publication that
vote for you, it was something that I didn’t think lightly.
I was really honored.”
The country
music singer performed for the very first time at the CMA Music
Festival in June.
“We
had our first fan club party,” Bryan said. “We had a
chance to launch that and get that goin’ which was just the
coolest thing in the world. It was a very emotional moment to sit
there and say that I have a fan club. It was a real big week. Finally
to end the week, being on the main stage at the CMA Fest and watching
40,000 people singing my songs back to me was crazy.”
Luke
Bryan will open for Kenny Chesney at Ford Field on Saturday, August
2, 2008.
PHOTO
BY JASON RZUCIDLO / ©AMERICAJR.com
Luke
Bryan got his first guitar at the age of 14. He then performed at
local bars and clubs. Bryan was noticed by a record label executive
and was signed to Capitol Nashville Records.
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