Country Music Herald

We continue on with our week of Brooks & Dunn here on Country Music Herald in celebration of their new CD “Cowboy Town”. We saw Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn take part in a photo shoot in Part 1 of this series, and now it’s time to see what the guys do in the recording studio. The mini-video below gives you a quick look into what happened in the studio as Kix and Ronnie put the finishing touches on the new album. Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the country music world? Here’s your chance to find out. Continue reading after the jump for even more insight into what Brooks & Dunn think about their new album, “Cowbly Town”, now available in stores everywhere.

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That determination to weather the storm - and to have a damn good time while doing it - has been essential to the music of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn since they released their debut album, Brand New Man, in 1991. Now, thirty million album sales, a couple of Grammys and a raft of ACM and CMA Awards later, little has changed for them where it counts - on the inside. “We’re not motivated by awards,” Brooks says. “Awards are a by-product of hard work, not what makes you do it. Both of us are motivated by the same desperation that motivated us when we first met. We believe in writing as many songs as we can, recording the best music we can, and working to make it all as good as we can make it.”

It’s that ethic, the values of a place “where a good man’s word is money in the bank,” that defines the world of Cowboy Town. Despite what its title may suggest, the album is not about rodeo cowboys or the inhabitants of a mythical West, however worthy those folks might be. As far as this album is concerned, a cowboy - or a cowgirl, for that matter, as the affecting “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” makes clear - is anyone who gets up and stands tall after taking a hit. Anyone, in other words, who weathers the storm.

It’s an attitude, Dunn says, that takes shape where “the Rolling Stones meet the cowboys out there across America and everywhere else.” And the rocking title track sounds that way, too - a muscular, uplifting blend of country and rock & roll. “We tried to go anthem with it,” Dunn explains with a sheepish chuckle.

Brooks agrees. “Musically, it’s banging straight ahead, and lyrically, it’s got all those iconic images in it,” he states approvingly. “It encompasses everything that’s going on with the album.”