Nashville, TN. (Top40 Charts/ BNA Entertainment) - It's a hard life – being a hillbilly rock star out of control. Between the flash sell-out football stadiums – Boston's Gillette Field in 15 minutes, a '60s Minutes ' profile airing this Sunday, Feb 18, the four Entertainer of the Year awards and watching your buddy pick up the MVP Award at this Super Bowl, there's never a dull moment.
And just when it seems life can't get any better, here comes Sports Illustrated infamous Swim Suit issue, and rather than buying it, you're in it. Hard to believe a kid from Luttrell , Tennessee who started picking guitar in sundry bars in college could get so lucky – and yet, there he is: Kenny Chesney, paired with leggy blond beauty Marisa Miller for a free-for-all in front of a white scrim.
'I could tell doing this shoot, we had very similar lives,' Chesney said of what appears on the page to be instant chemistry. 'We're both very normal people, but then the lights come on, she becomes this other person. People who seem me onstage know what that means...'
Mostly it means Chesney and people like him know how to jettison their cares and have a good time. Pull out the stops and ride a moment for all it's worth – and even in the 'this-can't-be-happening-to-me' –stream have a ball with it.
'After years and years of looking at this issue, I can't believe I'm it,' concedes the man whose 'Beer In Mexico' from the triple platinum The Road & the Radio feels like it could be the same kind of season-defining anthem that last year's multi-week No 1 'Summertime' turned out to be. 'You know, me and my fraternity brothers used to go right out and buy it when we were in college. Now, today, well, there I am.'
Indeed, there he is. Along with such rock, rap and pop forces as Aerosmith, Panic! at the Disco, Kanye West, Jimmy Buffett and Gnarls Barkley – and Beyonce in her very own shoot. Chesney's used to keeping only the finest company – slated to spend his entire Flip Flop Summer Tour with triple platinum stars Sugarland and Texas' iconic Pat Green, along with Top ACM Female Vocalist Sara Evans and triple Entertainers of the Year Brooks & Dunn for his six NFL Stadium shows.
'Life is what you make it,' says the hardworking songwriter/singer who spends his life dreaming out loud. 'I don't think I could've ever imagined a lot it, but I sure am glad I get to be here watching it all go down. After all, this is the kinda stuff that's beyond belief.
Look for Chesney's Flip-Flop Summer Tour – brought to you by Cruzan Rum - to kick-off April 12th at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska and roll through early fall. Between now and then, catch him on CBS' '60 Minutes' this Sunday, Feb. 18, and as part of the Academy of Country Music Awards nominees' announcements, live on CBS' 'The Early Show' March 5, not to mention in Sports Illustrated's Swim Suit issue, making him the envy of red-blooded American men everywhere.
