Chesney is promoting his first book
Kenny Chesney recently sat down with host Ashley Till for a special town hall on SiriusXM’s No Shoes Radio in celebration of his new book, Heart*Life*Music. During the interview, the East Tennessee native detailed a few moments he had with his heroes, including Bruce Springsteen and teased changes his 2026 Sphere Las Vegas return.
“When I first started, about a year after I went on the road, somehow, I was picked to go on the George Jones and Tammy Wynette reunion tour, and all of a sudden, there was this kid from East Tennessee who heard George Jones and his grandmother’s kitchen, and I was out on the road with them,” Chesney recalls when asked about a surreal moment with a music superstar. “One night, after a couple of weekends, George’s wife Nancy came up to me and she goes, ‘Would you like to fly home with us?’ and I’d never seen a private jet, much less ridden in one, so all of a sudden, I’m on the plane with George and we’re talking about my life. I’m telling him about my family and how much we loved him, and I didn’t want to go overboard because I didn’t want to seem like that guy, but I mean, he really took it in and loved it, and that was the beginning of a really great friendship.”
He continues, “One night, I was in Holmdel, New Jersey. This was several years later, way after the No Shoes album came out and we were rolling really hard and we were playing the amphitheater in Holmdel, New Jersey and I get a call from my tour promoter, Louis Messina, and he says, ‘Bruce Springsteen’s getting ready to knock on your bus door,’ and you’re not really, I went, ‘Okay,’ and the next thing you hear is, and I open the door and it’s really Bruce Springsteen, and he comes up on the bus and we chat a little bit and I had a couple of my guys. He came by himself on his motorcycle, and I had a couple of my crew guys walking him out. He didn’t watch from the side of the stage. He walked right through the audience and sat up at the front of house sound, at the front of house mixing board and watched the whole show, and then he came back to the bus and we sat and talked I bet for two hours and it was one, I talk about that moment in the book, and that started a really, really amazing friendship with Bruce and he didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad he did.”
Chesney recently announced that he’ll return to the Las Vegas Sphere in June 2026, featuring some new additions. Chesney impressed the audience with the way Sphere’s technology was used to maximize both the clarity of sound and the immersive video components. Given the chance to share this experience with anyone who might’ve missed it, or share with those who want one more ride, the 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame electee decided to do one more string of shows at the Sphere.
“We have to change it some. Half the show’s probably gonna be completely different, and we’re gonna change some of it that was not, you know, there’s some songs that we haven’t done in a while that we’re gonna do,” Chesney says. “That’s the beauty of it, because in that environment you get to do songs that you don’t get to do at stadium shows, and so we did a lot of that this year and we’re gonna do some more of that next summer, but I would say probably at least half the show is gonna be completely different because I wouldn’t want to go to the Sphere one year and then come back the next year and see the exact same thing. It’s like, ‘Oh, well, I went to the circus last year and they did the same thing this year.'”
The full interview is available on SiriusXM’s No Shoes Radio (ch. 59) and anytime on the SiriusXM App.
Chesney will release his first book, Heart*Life*Music, with William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on November 4th. The freewheeling take on the superstar’s journey from small-town East Tennessee dreamer to commanding the largest stages across the nation will capture the sparks of creativity, venture to places long gone, make unexpected music in Jamaica, the Kremlin, New England, and Cabo San Lucas, drift across the waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, encounter and collaborate with heroes, engage with a coterie of singular folks, friends and inspirations, and always find the joy of being unabashedly alive.
The country superstar will embark on a five-date book tour, discussing how he got here, what motivated him when so many would’ve given up, sports, legends, a dog named Cookie and how he fell in love with the ocean long before he knew how to play a guitar.
