Country music star Dierks Bentley is a thrill junkie.
The 42-year-old, multiplatinum singer-songwriter often goes days without a good night’s rest, playing back-to-back shows on the adrenaline rush encouraged by fans and his love of performing.
“I’m probably the worst sleeper in all of country music. It’s unbelievable. I sleep less than anyone in my band or my crew,” the Phoenix native said over the phone from Nashville last week. “I get maybe four or five hours a night. I used to just get hammered every night on the road and pass out. And then when I stopped drinking that much I started realizing, ‘Maybe I’m not such a good sleeper on my own.’ “
As the father of three boys, aged 4, 7 and 9, Bentley may have slowed down in his partying, but he has lately found himself turning to other high-stakes (if longer-term) pursuits to get his fix.
Take his new album “The Mountain,” which was released on June 8. Bentley recorded his ninth full-length album at Telluride’s Studio in the Clouds, inspired by the beauty of the Centennial State he has long visited, has numerous family members in, and in which he maintains a vacation home. Or his Seven Peaks Music Festival, which debuts Aug. 31-Sept. 2 outside the 2,700-person town of Buena Vista, about two hours southwest of Denver. That’s the big one.
“My buddy Brian O’Connell with Live Nation has started a few new festivals before, but there’s still a lot of risk in doing this,” Bentley said. “We’re managing that as much as possible, but it’s still risky — which is fun. I love that element of failure being possible. It’s like making a first record. That’s where all the good stuff is.”
The Live Nation-produced event is an experiment in country music’s draw to a relatively unpopulated swath of the state, featuring performances by pop-country, bluegrass, roots and Americana notables Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Clint Black, Sam Bush, Kiefer Sutherland (yes, that Kiefer Sutherland), The Cadillac Three, Elle King, Dan + Shay, Travis Denning, Del McCoury Band and many more.
While Denver music fans have long welcomed archetypical jam-band Phish to the Front Range for its three-day camping-and-music extravaganza at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Seven Peaks — named after the fourteeners visible from the private, 277-acre ranch where it’s held — is far more of a gamble. Bentley said he’d be happy if 10,000 people showed up the first year, although the event is designed to draw about three times that.
We caught up with Bentley about why he almost gave up on the idea, and why he’ll be in the crowd as much as on-stage at his festival.
Q: I see you’re calling from a 720 (Denver) area code. Are you in town?
A: No, I got a flip phone with a Denver number. I’m kind of transitioning away from my smartphone, I’m just so sick of the thing. And I thought, “I want a Denver area code” because I believe in the power of manifesting your goals, like making something your password that you’re aspiring toward, and having it be something you look at every day constantly so it will lead you there. One day I’ll be out there, but for now I’m in good old Nashville — traffic and bachelorette parties everywhere.
Q: What is it about Colorado you want people to know about?
A: It’s not just the festival. For me, it’s a nostalgia thing. I’m from Arizona and used to spend a lot of time going up to the Four Corners on my way to Durango. My parents had a place in Purgatory, kind of a little cabin. We all slept on two pull-out couches and spent every Thanksgiving and Christmas and spring there. There were $25 season (skiing) passes, which was great. And I’ve still got a lot of family up there — a cousin down in Creede, a sister who went to CSU, a sister-in-law in the mountains. I grew up with blue skies and a mountain in my backyard.
Q: And you miss that?
A: I left home, went away to school when I was 14, and came to Nashville when I was 19. I’ve been out here for 25 years. Sometimes my wife will find me out in the backyard, regardless of the weather, in a foldout lawn chair trying to find the sunset through the trees. It’s no substitute. I’ve just reached a place where I’ve had enough success, and as a pilot I feel like I can be a little more mobile. My kids are pretty happy in school here so it’s a constant struggle with that. I would just prefer to be there. But I can’t be, so it’s like, “All right, well there’s some other options for more time out there.” And I’ve been clearing my schedule for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival every year and making that a priority.
Q: Does that offer a break from your usual touring schedule?
A: It was just so inspiring. When I’m away from the road I don’t pull my guitar out of the case too often, but the electricity and energy in the mountains was just crazy. And my wife was like, “You should go out there and do some writing or do a retreat.” So I did, which was a hard thing to do because I try to spend as much time at home as possible between (tour dates). Then I started thinking, “How can I spend even more time out there?” So I made (“The Mountain”), and now this festival. All under the guise of work.
Q: Seven Peaks is a brand new festival in a state with no shortage of major, long-running music festivals, including Grand Junction’s Country Jam. Are you worried about drawing people, particularly with things you can control like weather?
A: Boulder gets 300-plus days a year of sunshine. I know that because I recently looked at schools there. And it’s different out here (in Nashville). The weather just socks in and you can’t even find any definition in the clouds. It’s just gray. But in the west, stuff rolls in and rolls out. Seven Peaks is definitely rain-or-shine, but the weather’s just so nice in Colorado every August. It’s still 95 degrees in Nashville and humid here.
Q: Was it hard finding the right spot for this?
A: We were out there for awhile talking with different sites. Phish does something every year at that soccer stadium, and yeah, that might be cheaper and we could use their stage, but it doesn’t feel like Colorado. I mean, you’re asking fans to come from all over the country — I was just playing New York the other day and there were people holding signs saying “We’re coming to 7 Peaks!” — and you want them to be able to see the Rockies. Then we looked at some polo fields that had infrastructure that were a little closer to the Front Range, but it was like, “Nah … .”
Q: You really want it to have a Colorado “feel.” What does that mean to you?
A: Luke (Bryan) does the Crash My Playa festival, which is on a beach. You’re not like inland 5 miles, you’re actually on the beach down in Cancun. So this needs to be in the mountains. But I gave up on it for awhile because we couldn’t find the right place.
Q: What revived it for you?
A: I was making the record and looking for any excuse to get back out there, and the timing was just unbelievable: Brian (O’Connell) called back and said “I found the spot!” And he sent me these pictures with Jed (Selby), who owns the land. He’s built the infrastructure, he’s had another festival (Vertex) there before, and it’s surrounded by these 14,000-foot mountains. So I had to go see it for myself, and I’ve been out there three times so far. I went out once just to go walk around and look at everything — these bridges that can support cement trucks, the camping fields where he’s already had a rock-picker come through and pick up all the rocks. I love this guy and his attention to detail! It was meant to be. I wasn’t going to do it unless it was the exact right spot, and this is it.
Q: What have you learned from other festivals you’ve played?
A: The location itself has to be worth the trip. But you also have to have the right team. We just had a planning meeting the other day, and you look around the room and realize it’s all my guys from my tour, who are the guys who will be stage-managing the Whiskey Row stage, or the Somewhere on a Beach stage. We’re going to have a pond that has water cycling through every 24 hours, and there’s actually sand around it. That’s going to be a DJ stage. But it’s really about the fans, and having that attention to detail for them. If we put on a festival and people don’t come, it’s not going to last. So having things like twice as many Porta Potties for the girls as for as the guys, ice widely available, good signage, and access to parking and camping — that’s all I really care about.
Q: That and recouping the financial investment, I’m guessing.
A: I haven’t even thought about the financials for me or when I get paid. Very early on I was like, “How do you want to look at this? As something you can make money off of or something that’s successful?” And I’m doing this because it’s a fun idea. I know Live Nation’s in it for money, which his good. Money makes you work hard and put your butt into it. But for me it’s about people walking away and going, “Wow, that was an awesome way to spend my Labor Day weekend. I loved that Dierks was out and about everywhere in a golf cart. He got onto every stage and sang with every band and he was also out in the campgrounds joining in on impromptu jams. He was so accessible.” That’s what I want.
Q: What else makes this festival different than others in the state?
A: DelFest (Del McCroury’s Cumberland, Md.-based music festival) provided a lot of inspiration, in terms of both how he runs it and how the fans have really made it what they want it to be. Del’s up there playing in suit and tie, and most people in the audience are wearing tie-dyes and noodling. I’m hoping for that for Seven Peaks. Bring in a country audience, bring in a bluegrass audience, but let them make the traditions. I love ’90s country, so that’s going to be involved in there, too, but we’ll see what that brings out.
Q: I noticed Del gave you some advice in a Rolling Stone article about Seven Peaks: Get ”at least 16 hours of a sleep a night.”
A: Which is hilarious. I saw his advice but it’s not going to happen. I have a game plan for what I’m going to do, and how I want this first year to go. All the people (performing) this year are my friends, and it’s a big trust thing the very first time you do this — asking fans and friends to place their trust in you. We’ve got all these people coming out from California to Canada, people I’ve collaborated with on records or on tour, and I’m going to get up and sing with everybody? Sleep’s not really going to be in my future.
If you go
Seven Peaks Music Festival. Country, roots, bluegrass and Americana from Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Clint Black, Sam Bush, Elle King, Del McCoury Band and others. Aug. 31-Sept. 2 at 14822 County Road 350 in Buena Vista. Tickets: $215-$999 for festival passes; $125-$200 for camping passes, sevenpeaksfestival.com
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