Dierks Bentley and Breland on NASCAR and Country Music: ‘If You’re Not Growing, You’re Dying’

Charisma Madarang
·4 min read
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Before the green flag dropped at the Daytona 500, more than 100,000 fans flooded the sold-out International Speedway last Sunday. To mark its 75th diamond anniversary season, NASCAR continued pre-race tradition with celebrated artists in country music. This year, multi-platinum recording artist Dierks Bentley set the tone with a hit-packed concert, while Breland — one of country’s rising stars featured on Bentley’s “Beers on Me” track — took the stage to sing the national anthem.

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Rolling Stone had a chance to catch up with the artists before the race of the season kicked off. We talked about NASCAR’s roots in country music, expanding the genre with new sounds, and how growth is necessary to keeping country alive.

Bentley, whose 10th studio album Gravel & Gold arrived Friday, discussed the “parallels between NASCAR and country” ahead of his show.

“Like any sport, if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” said Bentley. “And same goes for country music. We need to keep expanding and growing and I think it’s an exciting time to be there.” He credited the genre’s changing landscape to Black artists like War and Treaty, Jimmy Allen, and Breland, and said that although musicians are “still battling, still grinding, still trying to find ways to get heard,” things are “moving in the right direction.”

The 14-time Grammy-nominated artist also spoke about how the pandemic shaped his writing process, forcing him to slow down and stay present in the moment. “I was able to just do things I’ve been missing,” said Bentley. “I needed to get my hands dirty in life, with my family, with adventure. And a common theme in a lot of my music, in a song like ‘Gold’ or ‘Living,’ talks about trying to find a higher, better version of yourself. And to do that, you have to go out there and live a little. So what I got the most of the pandemic was just living. And when it came time to write songs again at the end of 2020, I got a lot of good stuff to draw from and was in a good headspace mentally to dig back into it. Of course, it ended up taking two more years, but I feel like it was worth it because I love the album.”

Breland, who has become one of Nashville’s most creative forces, also reflected on his studio process. In addition to songs under his own name, like “Throw It Back” and “Cross Country” with Keith Urban, Breland has co-written and guested on multiple tracks including Urban’s “Out the Cage,” Nelly’s “High Horse,” and Dierks Bentley’s “Beers on Me,” his first hit on terrestrial radio.

“I’ll bring my influences and the way that I create into the room. I might come in with a title or potentially a direction for the sound, but I also know that whoever I’m collaborating with has their own sound and things that they might want to get off their chest, either conceptually, or sonically,” said Breland. “I come from this soulful gospel background, and I’ve written a lot of hip hop music. They might have grown up entirely on bluegrass and folk and traditional Americana. And I think when those influences are put in the same space for two people who are trying to sing together on the song, you get something that’s never really been made before.”

“One thing that I try to do is just make sure that whatever I’m doing is authentic to my experience, and that I’m saying and singing things that feel right to me,” he added. “I have my own distinct sound and voice and way of expressing myself musically. And, you know, all of that considered, I think one could argue that I’m a genre.”

Breland also talked about how streaming services have helped elevate and create a platform for more diverse voices and influences in music. “The country listenership is evolving, and the types of artists making country music are evolving,” said the singer-songwriter. “It’s all working at once, which has not always been the case, where previously you might have one sound that dominates the airwaves and was popular in country for a decade at a time… But right now, it actually all works because there are enough people listening to everything who are open to different expressions of music and different expressions of country music.”

The Cup Series continues to the Auto Club Speedway for the Pala Casino 500 on Feb. 26. Follow NASCAR and find tickets to upcoming races here.

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