August 2018 30 • Bentley was born into a nonmusical family on November 20, 1975, in Phoenix, Arizona, and spent most of his childhood there. His father, Leon Fife Bentley, worked as a stockbroker and bank vice- president and his mother, Cathy, stayed home to care for Bentley and his siblings. Frederick is his real first name. His middle name, Dierks, is a family surname— his mother's grandmother's name. His brother is named Fife, also a family name. • Dierks Bentley grew up having his name misspelled or mispronounced and even today when he shows up at a venue, he checks the marquee to make sure it is spelled correctly. • His father introduced him to music and he started playing the electric guitar when he was 13. However, he did not develop an appreciation for Country music until his parents sent him to boarding school in New Jersey when he was a teenager due to his inability to stay out of trouble. He turned to country music because it reminded him of home. Like other guitar-crazed teens of the 1980s, Bentley spent his free time messing around on the instrument trying to emulate Van Halen and Billy Idol. During one jam session, he and his friends were visited by the police because of a noise complaint. Just the Facts DIERKS BENTLEY When Bentley was 17, a friend turned him on to Hank Williams Jr. by insisting he listen to Williams' song "Man to Man," which details a conversation between a son and his dead father. Bentley immediately switched allegiances, from rock to country. 96.3 Real Country Legends welcomes Dierks Bentley to Ak-Chin Pavilion on September 29, 2018. • The album garnered Bentley the Academy of Country Music's Top New Artist Award in 2004. • Bentley co-wrote eight of the eleven numbers on his second album, “Modern Day Drifter,” released in 2005. The album, another million-seller, was aptly titled, considering Bentley was living on a tour bus. Songs included "Cab of My Truck," "Lot of Leavin' Left to do" and the drinking tune "Domestic, Light and Cold." The album secured Bentley's status as a rising star in the music industry. • In 2005, he also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award (now Best New Artist), which is given to the best newcomer, and was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry (At Just 29, Bentley became the youngest musician ever invited to become a regular on the Opry's hallowed stage). The induction took place on October 1, 2005. Bentley stands as the third youngest member of the Grand Ole Opry after Carrie Underwood and Josh Turner. • Amidst all his success, Bentley snuck off to Mexico on December 17, 2005, to marry his high school sweetheart Cassidy Black. Dierks and his wife, Cassidy, dated in high school and sporadically through the years before going their separate ways. Years later, the two met again in February of 2005 on his tour bus. They actually ended up together because he dated her friend and things didn't work out. Dierks' mom was not very happy that she wasn't invited to the big day. a Slowdown," "Every Mile a Memory," "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)," "Feel That Fire," "Sideways," "Am I the Only One," "Home", "5-1-5-0," "I Hold On," "Drunk on a Plane," “Say You Do,” “Somewhere on a Beach,” “Different for Girls” and “Woman, Amen.” Five more of his singles have reached the Top 5. His first five albums have sold more than 5 million copies and gained 11 Grammy nominations. “Drunk On a Plane” won the CMA Video of the Year in 2014 and “Different for Girls” (with Elle King) won the CMA Vocal Event of the Year in 2016. • He was nominated for a CMT Award for Performance of the Year in 2014 for his collaboration of "Counting Stars" with rock band OneRepublic. "That, in itself, was one of the coolest things in my career for me personally," Bentley said, speaking of crossing genres. "I just loved that." • His favorite singer of all time is George Jones. • All-time favorite movie is Days of Thunder. • Dierks favorite sport to watch is football especially the Titans. His favorite sport to play is hockey and he takes his hockey equipment with him on tour, just in case he has time to hit the ice. The NHL used Bentley's song, "Am I the Only One," to promote its sport in 2011 and collaborated with Bentley on a special NHL edition of the song's video. • Bentley holds a private pilot license and owns a custom Cirrus SR22T. Dierks could legally fly his own plane instead of just getting drunk on one. Of course, he doesn't use it to get to his shows. • A fan of NASCAR, Bentley's song, "Sideways," was commissioned by Fox Sports in 2011 and featured on televised NASCAR events. Bentley also narrated and appeared in the 2009 DVD biography of race car driver, Kasey Kahne. • He loves a good tailgate. Bentley admits he regularly heads out in the parking lot before his shows to see who is tailgating. "Man, the parking lot scene — as a country fan, that's kind of what you go there for," Bentley told the Today Show. "Tailgating, getting out there, seeing your friends, hangin' out. It's what everyone does on the weekend. And so we get a chance to be the show, the entertainment. "I love taking my little Jeep and driving out into the parking lot to see what (fans) are doing," he added. "They're having a lot more fun (out there) than we are." He will walk around talking to fans and of course sometimes going unnoticed for a bit. • Bentley and his bandmates have some traditions while on tour. "We try to keep the same traditions — a few red Solo cups and some music and a pre-show huddle and a prayer — and go out there and try to hit it like it's the middle of the show," he told CMT. "Not like it's our first song, but with our guns blazing, and try to get all the energy we can and make it as fun for those fans as possible.” • Their second daughter, Jordan Catherine Bentley, was born December 25, 2010. Their son Knox was born on October 9, 2013. Bentley wrote his hit song "Feel that Fire" about his wife, Cassidy. They now live in Nashville, Tennessee with their dogs Patch Adams, Emmy Lou Hoo, and George. • Though he gave more than 300 performances in 2005, Bentley found time to cut another lively, yet neo- traditional flavored album and released Long Trip Alone in 2006. He had writing credit on all eleven tunes. The album, with the No. 1 single "Every Mile a Memory," also topped the Billboard album chart. • A bluegrass studio album, Up on the Ridge, was released on June 8, 2010. He was nominated for a Grammy for the album's cover of U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)," recorded with the Punch Brothers. • His sixth album, “Home”, followed in February 2012. It debuted at No. 1 and spawned three consecutive chart-topping hits, marking 12 career No. 1 songs for Bentley as a singer and songwriter. • His seventh album was called Riser and came out in 2014. Riser was written following his father's death in 2012. The lead track, "I'm A Riser," is a song about "resilience and determination." • Bentley's studio albums have accounted for twenty nine singles on the country charts, of which sixteen have reached No. 1: his debut single "What Was I Thinkin'", as well as "Come a Little Closer", "Settle for • Music and Nashville tugged at him and one day Bentley called his mother to tell her he was heading South. Bentley moved to Nashville in 1994 and enrolled at Vanderbilt University, where he studied English because it was the closest thing to songwriting he could find. He graduated there in 1997. • Dierks started working at Nashville Network (now SpikeTV) at the age of 19. His job was to look through old videos of country music performances! The job afforded Bentley the opportunity to watch historic performances from the 1940s to the 1980s. Bentley spent the next few years immersing himself in the country music capital's music scene. He worked hard to learn the ropes, but his ride to the top was not very swift. He obtained a fake ID and began hanging out at Nashville's famed Station Inn bluegrass bar. Bentley sat there, night after night, absorbing the music and the musicians who filtered through the doors. He performed at open mic nights and showcases—often for free, sometimes playing for beer or tips. He often played at Music Row's famed Bluebird Café. • By 2000, Bentley felt ready to cut his own album and cobbled together a studio group that included performers from the Jamie Hartford Band and the Del McCoury Band. The album was funded by a loan taken out against his producer's car. The album grabbed the attention of several major labels and by 2002, Bentley had a recording deal with Capitol Records. His first major-label album, simply titled “Dierks Bentley,” went platinum, selling one million copies. It contained three high-charting country singles and the chart-topping single "What Was I Thinkin’,” which tells the story of a guy who cannot stay away from a trouble-making girl who has a shotgun-loving father. Bentley wrote or co- wrote all but two of the songs. The album's heartbreak songs are hauntingly poignant, likely because they were written on the heels of a breakup Bentley went through in 2000 after he proposed to a girlfriend and she turned him down. The couple welcomed their first child, Evelyn “Evie” Day Bentley, on October 4, 2008. Evie makes a vocal appearance on the song "Thinking of You." In an interview with NPR, he said that his motivation for the single, "Home," was the January 2011 shooting in Tucson that killed six people and injured 13 others, including Representative Gabriel Giffords. Like many, he was angry and confused about the shootings but wanted to write a song that also encouraged healing.