On 'Storytellers,' Dierks Bentley embraces songwriting's place in the musical 'zeitgeist'

Dierks Bentley is delighted as he sits backstage at Marathon Music Works before taping an episode of CMT's "Storytellers."

The event premieres on the network Wednesday at 9 p.m. CT and will be available for streaming on multiple portals.

"Gravel & Gold," Bentley's 10th studio album, was released two weeks ago, and its lead single's success will guarantee him his 28th Top 10 hit on country radio in the past two decades.

Bentley is less than a 10-minute drive from his front door, playing some of his favorite music in an intimate venue. The proximity of a major gig to his family's home is essential.

To wit, on his current single, Bentley sings: "I got some rust on my Chevy, but it's ready to roll / I got a rhinestone sky and a song in my soul."

Bentley's forthcoming episode of "Storytellers," CMT's successful revival of the quarter-century-old VH1 program, highlights how his approach to songwriting has evolved from high art to being in practical service to his life.

"Write every day and don't be precious about it," he was told by legendary producer and songwriter Tony Brown after he arrived in Nashville at the turn of the 21st century. Bentley had with him neatly hand-typed lyrics sealed behind plastic sleeves in a three-ringed binder.

"I ended up sitting down and writing one day with [his frequent collaborator] Brett Beavers, and he asked me about another song I had written that included the phrase '5150,' or the California state police code for mental illness," Bentley says.

"[Beavers] said '5-1-5-0 somebody call the po-po.' I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Now it's the chorus to one of the biggest songs I've ever released. Turns out, Tony was right."

"Drunk on a Plane," the 2014 single with which he is so often linked as a country star, emerged in a different manner, as its initial writer, Josh Kear, developed a story about a guy being dumped by his fiancee at his wedding. Because it is too late to refund the plane tickets, he takes the "honeymoon" trip to Cancun alone. The reason for the song's title becomes apparent while he's airborne.

"I knew it would go over great live," Bentley says. "Like I could just take my guitar and go and play it in front of an audience that had never heard it before and get a laugh and entertain with that song."

His platinum-seller "Living" from 2019 emerged from a trip on his tour bus to a Walgreen's. His current album track, "Walking Each Other Home," is a treatise on the human connective power of holding hands.

Bentley sings: "So take the low road, take the high road / Take whatever road you're on / Sometimes the wrong one leads you right/ Sometimes the right one leads you wrong / And the world just keeps on spinnin' / So find a hand for holdin' on / 'Cause we're all just walkin' each other home."

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"I can make a bonus song for a Target album release, a song to play well on a streaming playlist, or a song for the live set," Bentley says.

It ties back nicely to how common, approachable lyricism amplified by uncommonly great musicianship, provides the balance that has benefitted Bentley's work.

He taps into his headspace about writing "Gravel & Gold," recalling days when he questioned his ability and desire to craft new material.

"There were days when I was stressed out and wondering, 'What in the hell am I going to write today?'" Bentley says. "I don't stockpile ideas for songs like I used to. ['Gravel & Gold'] developed out of pieces and parts of things that others brought to the table. Something — a great hook, anything — always emerged that worked."

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Discussing musicianship, Bentley's love for top-tier players and great songwriting (he cites Waylon Jennings as an influence for 2005's "Lot of Leavin' Left To Do") is crucial to the delivery of his work.

He cites live performances by Bon Jovi, Garth Brooks, Brothers Osborne, the Eagles, Foo Fighters, HARDY, Miranda Lambert, Parker McCollum, Pearl Jam and U2 as important to the way he views the strength of how a song is conveyed.

"From back in the days when I was playing at Wolfy's (now Rippy's) on Lower Broadway, I enjoy being on a stage with seven guys and telling great stories people feel," he says. "We're behind evenly placed microphones at the front of that room and exchanging energy with the crowd. My fans deserve the best, loudest, full-tilt boogie experience possible.

"These songs represent me in the right place at the right time, tapping into the zeitgeist's musical consciousness. But songwriters have ideas and singers — more often than not, these days — are running businesses. From the writing to the [lyrical interpretation] and then performance, the life of a song is a process that also keeps Nashville alive."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: On CMT's 'Storytellers,' Dierks Bentley embraces songwriting