Brooks & Dunn reunite to record a new album and it’s a whole lot of fun

The RESTART experience inspired Kix and Ronnie Dunn to get back to doing what they do best: writing and creating new music. “We’d talked about it, but we hadn’t really gotten down to business. Now we were thinking about it a little more seriously – and then out of the blue, Clarence Spalding (our manager) says, ‘Hey, I think there’s another RESTART– I think we should do one RESTART II.'”

At first Brooks & Dunn was not sold on the idea. “Didn’t we? Are we going to keep doing this?” Kix remembers wondering.

Clarence – knowing what the fans want – emphasized how well it could be received. The caveat? It was time to really shake things up.

“’I think you really have to take the gloves off — I think we should open this wide open to other genres’ — because we pretty much stuck to country music on the first one — ‘Let’s let them pick whatever song they want. They can bring their own band if they want, they can bring their own producers if they want, and let’s go from A to Z. Let’s open it up wide open, some rock guys and some R&B guys , and with bluegrass. Let’s just go all over the place with this and see — let’s really open up the freedom box here and see what happens.’ All of a sudden, Ronnie and I look at each other, we both kind of smiled and thought, ‘Okay, who could we get?'” Kix recalls.

As the most iconic country rock duo of all time, it wasn’t difficult for Brooks & Dunn to garner interest in their new project. Before they knew it, Lainey Wilson, Morgan Wallen, Megan Moroney, Warren Zeiders, Jelly Roll, HARDY, ERNEST and Riley Green were all on board – and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Knowing they wanted to show their love of genre-blending, they reached out to the Marcus King Band for a taste of bluesy, psychedelic southern rock, The Cadillac Three for a hint of the band’s signature country-rock swagger, and Christone “KINGFISH” Ingram for some soul-shaking blues. The duo also ended up working with Halestorm, Mitchell Tenpenny, The Earls of Leicester and a few others for the project. The result? 18 renovated tracks that are literal music to our ears.

“These young artists – a lot of times they tell you they’re fans and stuff, but once you get past the first comment you realize – they’re professionals and they’re really good at what they do, otherwise they would not be there,” Kix tells. “And you know, we’ve been there longer than they have because we’re older than them, but that’s it, you know? Once you get past the high-fives and ‘Nice to meet you,’ then you go to work, and it was fun for Ronnie and I because we have a moment to go, you know, ‘We don’t just been here a while we’re old pros and we’ve done this a lot and we’ve gotten pretty good at it and man you’re pretty good at it too’ and it’s made I feel like , a really good collaboration.”

When reading through RESTART II tracklist, you may notice that some of the songs from RESTART made the cut. “We weren’t the least bit intimidated by cutting the same song again,” says Kix. “You know, we just told them to pick whatever, and that’s how Morgan was — his cut couldn’t be more different than Kacey Musgraves’. And it’s not like ‘Neon Moon’ isn’t still fun to listen to by any of these artists.”

And that’s the word Brooks & Dunn would use to sum up the whole RESTART II recording process: Fun. “We came out of there going, ‘Man, that was really fun,'” Kix says. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been in the studio together. Those songs are already hits, so it’s not like you had the pressure of, ‘Is this going to be a hit? Will it be here?’ There’s really nothing to prove there, other than we want to work with some acts we’ve never worked with before.”

A highlight from making the album? Surprising KINGFISH with a jet black Gibson guitar played by BB King himself to celebrate their collaboration and honor his Memphis Blues background. “It’s the guitar that BB King always played and he had signed it – you could tell on the gold pickups where they were smeared with sweat and stuff, which happens to gold things on guitars if you play them a lot,” Kix says. “So Chris finished his take and went back into the break room and I walked up with his guitar and said, ‘Hey man, check this out.’ And he’s looking at it and he’s like, ‘Holy shit, man, was this BB’s?’ And I say, ‘That was a whole tour.’ And he just holds it and stares at it, just shakes his head.” When he went to hand it back to Kix, though, he was met with the surprise of his life. “I said, ‘No man, we want you to have it; We’re giving it to you,'” Kix recalls. Chris couldn’t help but rave about the gift, but for Brooks & Dunn, it was the least they could do to show gratitude for a great collaboration that further differentiated their already iconic catalog.

Another memorable moment from the shoot RESTART II? Working (and laughing) with Lainey Wilson, who basically grew up in Kix’s backyard.

“My family farm — we’ve been farming since 1807 down in what’s called Fort Necessity — and it’s literally right around the corner, less than 20 miles from Baskin, where (Lainey’s) is from,” Kix says. “I’ve been hearing about her for about ten years — every time I go down there. ‘Hey man, have you done anything with Lainey Wilson?’ And ‘She’s really good and she’s gonna make it’ and all that, you know? And I’m sure she’s sick of hearing about me because I hit a lick before she did, and it’s so funny now—she came in with that ugly flame shirt that I created years ago; she made bell bottoms of the flame shirt; she was totally blown away. It was really fun for us to work together.”

It was so much fun, in fact, that Brooks & Dunn surprised Lainey and her fans during the Atlanta leg of her tour. They also performed at one of Morgan Wallen’s shows. Speaking of which, the Brooks & Dunn Neon Moon Tour, produced by Live Nation, is scheduled to begin touring the US in March 2025.

“I just love going on stage – to think that all those people care enough about some music you made after so many years – it really sounds so cliche, but it really makes you feel blessed; it’s a blessing and I don’t take it for granted,” Kix reflects. “I think it has a lot to do with where you come from. And you know, I was 36, Ronnie was 38 the day we met. I mean, what are the chances of us having a 30-year career? (It) had a lot to do with us rolling up our sleeves and digging in and saying “Okay, it might be gone tomorrow, but we’re not going to screw up today.”

As it currently stands, a RESTART III is not in the background. “We have no plans to RESTART III or something like that,” admits Kix. “We’ll see — maybe we should just do something new. I can’t imagine just turning around and trying to do this again. I don’t want to wear it out, you know?”

RESTART II is now available for your listening pleasure. Stream the new album wherever you get your music, or head over to www.brooks-dunn.com to buy limited edition autographed CDs and vinyls.

Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, DC metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she has covered a variety of lifestyle topics including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a BA in Media: Production, Consumption and Criticism, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she’s not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting stained glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket list cities.