The year 2009 was a sad one for Brooks and Dunn fans (including us) as the Grammy winners performed their farewell concert in Bridgestone Arena as a duo.
Still, it didn’t quite feel like the end for the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and fortunately, it wasn’t. Both Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn embarked on solo ventures, Ronnie in music and Kix in wine and TV, among other things.
But what else were they really up to during that break they took after they briefly parted ways? Their answers were as hilarious as they were heartwarming and understandable, as you’ll see in the video below.
“It’s probably the longest extended time either one of us had had to deal with real life,” Ronnie Dunn told CMT.com in an exclusive sit-down chat.
“I learned how to take orders from my wife, not that I never did,” he added. “But I was just never there enough to get under the regimen.
“I learned how to sit for extended periods of time and go ’I understand, honey, yes. I’m listening,’” he said, which naturally sent his musical partner Kix Brooks into hysterics.
“I think it was a good break for both of us, you know?” Brooks chimed in on a more serious note.
“There’s stuff you want to do, and when you are on the ’hillbilly treadmill,’ there’s really no time. There wasn’t any time off for us. We went twenty years without stopping. We were blessed with our first four singles going number one, which all of sudden you’re on the rocket ship then,” he revealed.
“Then you get great crews and a great band put together, and you can afford to do the things you always wanted to do as a career. in order to keep ’em, you keep going,” he said. “You can stop, but then you’ve got to start over. We never wanted to because we never believed it was going to go to the next month, much less the next ten years.”
Well, twenty, Kix, to be exact.
“It maybe could have been the end, but we never said it was. To each other, we never said it was,” he said.
And they mean it, too. In addition to their Vegas residency and this glorious, forthcoming new duets album Reboot, the duo had this to say when asked about the possibility of brand-new music in the future.
“We’re always writing,” Dunn revealed.
“Never say never about nothin’,” Brooks said with a cheeky expression.
We’re holding you to that one, Kix.
Reboot, a reimagining/re-recording of Brooks and Dunn’s biggest hits features collaborations with Ashley McBryde, Kacey Musgraves, Jon Pardi, LANCO and more, and hits shelves April 5.
