Chesney gets a photo spread in the physical edition of Ent Weekly but the online edition has a long article...
EW: If you’d told me when I was sitting on that barstool [playing for tips after college] that I'd win as many Entertainers of the Year as Garth Brooks did, I'd have told you you were crazy. And I have. Do I want to win another one? Yeah, sure. But you know what? The things that you have to do to be in that spot? I'm not gonna do anymore. I’m not. Because it has... in ways... I don’t know, it's weird. It’s like -- it almost makes it seem mechanical. And I think I can be better than that. I really do. I don't think I’ve written my best song yet. I want to be a great songwriter. And if that means, you know, taking a year off and living on my boat and writing those songs, I want to do it. Despite the consequences."
"You almost seem like you’re looking forward to it," I suggested, and Chesney nodded. "I'm looking forward to it," he said. "I still think that I've got a lot to give. But I want to give on my own terms. Because me and these guys have been busting our ass forever. And I'm not gonna stop doing that. We live by the code of we work really hard, and we play harder. There's no doubt about it. But I really don't think I've written my best song. I hope not. I mean, I'm 41. I produced a record with Willie Nelson [2008's Moment of Forever], and he was 70-something. I flew to Santa Monica, California, at the Shutters hotel. He had his bus in the parking lot. I got a room there, I woke up, I ran on the beach for about an hour, came back, took a shower, walked on Willie's bus sitting right outside there and said, 'Okay, what do we want to cut?' He played me one of the best songs. It was so inspirational. Because I was at a point in my life where I was so uninspired. As a person, as a musician. I was just not that interested in anything. I'd gone through a pretty rough period in my personal life, and I was halfway pissed off, and halfway uninspired. [Producer] Rick Rubin told me, 'No matter what you got, you got music.' And if you think about it, during that period, that's the only thing I had. He's right. And I walked on Willie's bus, and he sat there and played me songs. All the roads he's been down, and all the songs he's written, and all the people he's met, and all the people that have shaped his life, and all the songs he recorded, and all the shows he's done, and all the bulls--- he's put up with, everything. And I sat there and said, 'All right, what are we gonna cut?' And he played me this song called "Over You Again." And I was going through the exact same thing that he wrote. [sings, in a remarkable Willie impression] 'Gotta get over you again...had my heart wide open, you just walked right back in.' Every single day, he's gotta get over her again. It was the first song he played me. I said, 'Willie, we're cuttin' that song.' And I walked off that bus after three hours of listening to music, and I was back in the groove. That's what I want to do. If it means playing here tonight when I’m 70, great. If it doesn't, I don’t know. I just want to get bette
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