Brooks & Dunn: 'We Really Do Have a Good Thing'

Brooks: Yeah, I guess. It's just how I act and how I am and how I think. I like to think, in some regards, I try to mature in a respectful way. Probably when I was 30 I was a little less respectful of the world around me. But honestly, I'm as healthy as I can remember being in a long time. I try to do cardio every day and eat way healthier, drink way less than I was, and that's just been a natural progression. The older you get, the pain of really getting drunk, the next day it's like, Man, this sucks.

Are there things you do differently — sleep, diet, exercise?

Dunn: You do have to exercise.

Brooks: All of the above.

Dunn: All of the above, but that's nothing that we didn't have to do when we were younger, too. If you establish those habits at an early age, you can carry it over through the aches and pains at this age.

Brooks: We had tours years ago where as soon as we got done with the show, we'd head for the bars before we'd go to the next town. That was a lot of fun. We aren't inclined to do that.

And what about your diet — avoid anything?

Dunn: I cut back to a half a bag of potato chips after 10 at night. Other than that, we just hydrate between cocktails and keep rolling.

Brooks: Honestly, for several weeks now, I've been fasting until about one or two in the afternoon and then I'll eat. I love avocados, for instance. Guacamole toast.

Dunn: It’s a healthy protein.

Brooks: I make guacamole every day. I'm not exaggerating. I've probably got six [avocados] in the fridge right now at different levels of getting ripe. At night, I whip up some shrimp and pasta and whatever. I love to cook, but I've found [that] if I just keep it to one meal a day in the evening, I'm really fine. I try not to eat that much because, man, it is hard. Metabolism. I get a potbelly and I don't like how it looks, so I just have to go to work on it. I have a winery [Arrington Vineyards, near Nashville] and I love to drink. Especially wine — and it'll make you fat in a hurry.

Brooks & Dunn perform "Play Something Country” in Atlanta with Lainey Wilson.

Braden Carney

After 20 years together — you famously broke up in 2009 —  did you miss each other?

No, we still communicated. We traveled to Europe and did all kinds of things together. It kind of gave us the freedom to actually hang out on a social basis.

Brooks: Did a little duck hunting, this and that. We saw each other a lot.

You reunited in 2015 for a Las Vegas residency —Reba [McEntire], Brooks & Dunn: Together in Vegas. What did you like about that?

Dunn: We didn't have to hit the road every night and travel three, four, five hundred miles to get to the next show. We could go up to these big, big, ridiculously nice suites where they spoil you to death — and butlers. I'm trying to get my wife to go for that at home, but she won't do it.

Brooks: Anyway, 105 shows later, we said, "I think we did that. Time for me and Ronnie to get back in the honky-tonk business."

People love Vegas. Donny Osmond told me he's never leaving.

Dunn: Yeah, it's pretty darn easy. After a while it gets to be a little so-so, every day Groundhog Day thing, but not the way we did it. We were doing three, four shows, and then come back home and a couple weeks go back. It really helped bring things back together. Venue was great. We played the Colosseum at Caesars [Palace].

Brooks: It was a fun show. It was fun with Reba, but it didn't take Ronnie and I long to realize we really do have a good thing, and we do enjoy doing it.

You’ve described your relationship as being like brothers, so there must be something that really annoys you about the other?

Dunn: There's not. We give each other a lot of space. I mean that. I wish I could come up with something. I could, but no.

Brooks: We've said it a lot, and it's something I'm proud of — we've never raised our voices to each other. We've been pissed at each other on more than one occasion, but we go to our separate corners and take our time and forget about it. I wish on a friendship basis my wife and I got along as well.

“Reboot 2” releases Nov. 15 and pairs Brooks & Dunn with 18 artists playing time-tested classics.

Courtesy Brooks & Dunn

What advice would you share with young artists?

Dunn: We get calls — I do, I’m sure Kix does, too — on occasion from a promoter or a manager with a young artist that’s maybe struggling with their voice or something like that. So I always give them the old "Hey, look, you have to rest. It's hard to rest out there if you're running up and down the road at night on a bus or whatever. You have to sleep. You've got to drink water, hydrate and exercise. You don't have to kill yourself, but you do have to work out and do cardio, because it is physical up there. It's a sport. It's a full-contact sport, what we do."       

Dunn: On the road, I got a bicycle under my bus. I ride for at least an hour every day. A street bike. I ride a stationary bike at home. It's really harder than the street bike. There's no coasting on a stationary bike.

Dunn: I keep an elliptical.

Do you have any regrets?

Dunn: Not one.

Brooks: Lord, no. No. I mean, regrets are the furthest thing from the freaking joy that's been handed to us. We're a couple of the luckiest cats on the planet, honestly.

Whose music do you listen to?

Dunn: I’m all over the map. I listen to John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Eclectical, all over the place. More of a song guy than an artist guy.

Brooks: Me too. We came in from dinner the other night, and I pulled out an old Jerry Reed album and shot two racks of pool just listening to that. God, he was such a great musician. He was a picking son of a gun. I love old music — Steely Dan — great records, great musicians, great studio stuff. The older you get, the more you get to work in the studio, you realize how hard they work on that stuff. It's just the detail in some music like that. But root stuff is where my heart really is. I love [The] Allman Brothers [Band]. Again, great players. Real players and musicians have always inspired me. Players that have always been so much better than I could ever be. I think a great part of being a good human being is learning to appreciate other people’s talent.

What's your favorite thing to do when you're not performing?

Dunn: I grab a camera. I got into photography a few years ago. I'll take off and sneak off to the Galapagos and chase the Blue [Footed] Booby, and to Cheyenne, where the big rodeo is every year, shoot a bunch of stuff there. Montana, shoot the [Grand] Tetons. I was in Cowboys and Indians magazine a while back.

Brooks: I like fish. I like sport fishing. I like shallow water, big loop, blue water fishing, carp fishing, foam fishing. And I grew up in Louisiana, so I grew up bass fishing, but once I really got into fly rods and throwing long fly lines, it's exciting. On the road, golf's a great undertaking.

You're going out on tour — what’s next?

Dunn: That's it. That'll take up a good amount of time. And we'll run and do that. Keep writing songs and see if we can't come up with an original album after this one plays and runs its course, and keep doing what we do as long as we can — as long as it's fun.