In these fraught times, people turn to music to relax, escape, and just enjoy themselves. Country music superstar Kenny Chesney knows that very well. He and his loyal "No Shoes Nation" fans like to be more chill than shrill. The singer, whose buzzy new memoir, HEART*LIFE*MUSIC, was just released this week, discussed that per Holler via Newsweek. He shared, "No Shoes Nation means community to me. There's a lot of people within No Shoes Nation that might not have that community in their own life. It's a positive energy, full-of-love state of mind."
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Chesney went further and amplified that thought. "No Shoes Nation means community to me. There's a lot of people within No Shoes Nation that might not have that community in their own life. It's a positive energy, full-of-love state of mind."
Authenticity Matters to Him and His Fans
Chesney, 57, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, said, "It goes hand in hand with the title of this book - HEART*LIFE*MUSIC - because that means to me, 'You take what's in your heart, and you live it authentically...' Luckily for me and my audience, we have music to connect all those dots and help us pull all that through. That's what No Shoes Nation is."
Music Effectively Bridges the Differences Between His Crew
He said that his crew has many dissimilarities, but it's music that is the glue between them all. "Even in the backstage part of what I do, the people that work for me and everybody out there on the road. I mean, there's 120 people out there every day with me that roll down the highway together. We come from different backgrounds, we grew up in different places, we have different religious beliefs, we have different political beliefs, we do different things with our lives. But it's the music that brings us all together."
Chesney Avoids Tackling Controversy in His Music
The country music icon understands that other artists use their music to confront hot-button topics. He prefers not to do that, however. "I have never been the kind of artist to tell people how to think or how to vote. I don't think it's my place...They can be told that everywhere else in the world, and I think that's why the audience that I've built feels safe in that space, right?"
He added, "They're coming there to love everybody, no matter who you are, what you are, how you grew up - they want to come ad experience the music. Because they're told every other moment of their life how to think. They're manipulated online. Now with AI, they don't know what's real and what isn't. Well, this is real. The community we've created is real."
