Yahoo Lifestyle Brooks & Dunn Reunited to Record a New Album, And It's a Whole Lot of Fun
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
Happy new music Friday to all those who celebrate! This week, Brooks & Dunn fans are in for a nostalgic treat with the much-anticipated release of REBOOT II, the duo’s second foray in re-recorded classics with a modern twist.
As a refresher, Brooks & Dunn released REBOOT in 2019. The acclaimed 12-track album features reimagined duets with the likes of Luke Combs, Jon Pardi, Kacey Musgraves, and Thomas Rhett, among other young country stars.
“It worked a lot better—or it worked as well as we could have hoped for,” Kix Brooks tells Country Living. “It really created a new audience for us and it was definitely the most fun that we've ever had making a record.”
The REBOOT experience inspired Kix and Ronnie Dunn to get back to doing what they do best: writing and making new music. “We’d talked about it but we hadn’t really gotten down to business. Now we were kind of thinking more seriously about that—and then out of the blue, Clarence Spalding (our manager) goes, ‘Hey, I think there’s another REBOOT—I think we should do a REBOOT II.’”
At first, Brooks & Dunn weren’t sold on the idea. “Didn't we do that? Should we keep doing this?” Kix recalls wondering.
Clarence—knowing what the fans want—emphasized just how well-received it could be. The caveat? It was time to truly shake things up.
“‘I think you should really take the gloves off—I think we should open this wide open to other genres’—because we pretty much stuck to country music on the first one—‘Let's let them pick whatever song they want. They can bring their own band if they want, they can bring their own producers if they want, and let's go from A to Z. Let's open it wide open, some rock guys and some R&B guys, and with bluegrass. Let's just go everywhere with this and see—let's really open the freedom box here and see what happens.’ All of a sudden, Ronnie and I look at each other, we both kind of smiled and were like, ‘Okay, who could we get?’” Kix recalls.
As the most iconic country-rock duo of all time, it wasn’t hard for Brooks & Dunn to garner interest in their new project. Before they knew it, Lainey Wilson, Morgan Wallen, Megan Moroney, Warren Zeiders, Jelly Roll, HARDY, ERNEST, and Riley Green were all on board—and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Knowing they wanted to showcase their love of genre-blending, they reached out to Marcus King Band for a taste of bluesy, psychedelic southern rock, The Cadillac Three for a hint of the band’s signature swagger country-rock, and Christone “KINGFISH” Ingram for some soul-quaking blues. The duo also ended up working with Halestorm, Mitchell Tenpenny, The Earls of Leicester, and a few others for the project. The result? 18 refurbished tracks that are literal music to our ears.
“These young artists—a lot of times they, you know, they tell you that they’re fans and stuff, but once you get by that first comment, you realize—they're professionals, and they're really good at what they do, or they wouldn't be there,” Kix shares. “And, you know, we've been there longer than they have because we're older than them, but that's that, you know? Once you get past the high-fives and ‘It’s great to meet you,’ then you get down to work, and it was fun for Ronnie and I because we have a moment to go, you know, ‘We haven't just been here a while, we're some old pros and we've done this lot and we we've gotten pretty good at it and, man, you're pretty good at it too,’ and it's created, I feel like, a real good collaboration.”
When perusing the REBOOT II tracklist, you may notice that some of the songs from REBOOT made the cut. “We were not in the least intimidated by cutting the same song again,” Kix says. “You know, we just told them to pick whatever, and that's how Morgan was—his cut could not be any more different than Kacey Musgraves'. And it's not like ‘Neon Moon’ is not still fun to listen to by either one of those artists.”
And that’s the word that Brooks & Dunn would use to sum up the whole REBOOT II recording process: Fun. “We came away from there going, ‘Man, that was really fun,’” Kix shares. “It's been a long time since we've been in the studio together. Those songs are already hits, so it's not like you got the pressure of, ‘Is this going to be a hit? Is this going to be?’ There's really nothing to prove there other than we want to work with some acts we've never worked with before.”
A highlight from making the album? Surprising KINGFISH with a jet-black Gibson guitar played by B.B. King himself to commemorate their collaboration and honor his Memphis Blues background. “It’s the guitar B.B. King always played and he had signed it—you could tell on the gold pickups where they were rubbed off from sweat and stuff, which happens to gold stuff on guitars, if you play them a lot,” Kix shares. “So Chris got done with his take and went back in the break room and I walk up with his guitar and said, ‘Hey man, check this out.’ And he looks at it and he goes, ‘Holy shit, man, was this B.B.’s?’ And I go, ‘It was for a whole tour.’ And he’s just holding it and just staring at it, just shaking his head.” When he went to hand it back to Kix, though, he was met with the surprise of a lifetime. “I said, ‘No man, we want you to have it; We're giving it to you,’” Kix recalls. Chris couldn’t help but tear up over the gift but to Brooks & Dunn, it was the least they could do to show gratitude for a stellar collaboration that further differentiated their already iconic catalog.
Another memorable moment from recording REBOOT II? Working (and laughing) with Lainey Wilson, who basically grew up in Kix’s backyard.
“My family farm—we've been farming since 1807 down in what's called Fort Necessity—and it's literally right around the corner, less than 20 miles from Baskin, where [Lainey’s] from,” Kix says. “I've been hearing about her for like ten years—every time I go down there. ‘Hey man, have you done anything with Lainey Wilson?’ And ‘She’s really good and she's going to make it’ and all that, you know? And I'm sure she's sick of hearing about me because I hit a lick before she did, and it's so fun now—she came in with that ugly flame shirt that I created years ago; she made bell bottoms out of the flame shirt; she was totally flamed out. It was so sweet and cool. That was really fun for us to actually get to work together.”
It was so fun, in fact, Brooks & Dunn surprised Lainey and her fans during the Atlanta leg of her tour. They also made an appearance at one of Morgan Wallen’s shows. Speaking of, the Brooks & Dunn Neon Moon Tour, produced by Live Nation, is scheduled to begin touring the U.S. in March 2025.
“I just love walking on the stage—to think that all those people care enough about some music that you made after so many years—it really does sound so cliché, but it really makes you feel blessed; it’s a blessing and I don’t take it for granted,” Kix reflects. “I think it has a lot to do with where you come from. And, you know, I was 36, Ronnie was 38 years old the day we met. I mean, what are the chances we have a 30-year career? [It] had a lot to do with us rolling our sleeves up and digging in and going ‘Okay, this may be gone tomorrow but we're not going to screw today up.’”
As it currently stands, a REBOOT III isn’t in the wings.“We don't have plans for REBOOT III or anything like that,” Kix admits. “We'll see—we may just need to do something fresh. I can't imagine just turning around and trying to do this again. I don't want to wear this out, you know?”
REBOOT II is now available for your listening pleasure. Stream the new album wherever you get your music, or head over to www.brooks-dunn.com to purchase autographed limited-edition CDs and vinyls.
You Might Also Like
