On Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Kenny Chesney admits that with age, he’s become a lot less like the beach‑ball‑tossing stadium act from decades and more like a veteran pro breaking down how he keeps the wheels on. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter admits that his hillbilly rock‑star phase had finally reached its expiration date—and his body that first began circling it.
“I remember waking up one day, I was 40‑something, and I went, ‘OK, you acting the way you’re acting out here is not why you wanted to do this,’ that’s when I kind of started to change a little bit,” he says.
The shift in how he approached showtime became a survival tactic for the 58-year-old artist. “When you’re older, you have to be [clear about what you put into your body], so I can do that, continue to do it.”
The appearance on the popular Bill Maher podcast coincides with his second residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere, which kicked off on June 20 with a special appearance by Eric Church. Chesney’s vowed to lean into the venue’s immersive power—and its physical demands. Hitting the stage with “Here And Now” before ripping straight into his hits “Livin’ In Fast Forward,” “Young,” “Beer In Mexico,” “Keg In The Closet,” and “’Til It’s Gone,” he turned the four‑tiered, 366‑foot‑tall room into a full‑body experience for nearly 17,000 diehards.
“Sphere lets you really consider the tempos, lets you take liberties and risks, and it creates an intimacy that lets you really pull people to you,” he said after the show. That intimacy came with carefully programmed peaks: a slow‑burning, black‑and‑white “Come Over,” the vortex of “Noise,” and a neon‑mermaid aquarium for “All The Pretty Girls,” plus the joy‑of‑living sweep of new single “Carry On.”
On Club Random, Chesney admits he quit drinking onstage after recognizing the “fun” was undercutting performance. “I used to drink on stage, but I don’t do that… I always thought it gave me some sort of something, or I was having more fun, but then I realized that was just… that was it.”
He recalls an incident in which he was using weed gummies to sleep—and screwing up the dosage. “I do like a weed gummy every now and then,” he says. “Then I had to learn dosing because I didn’t know, all of a sudden I lost my motor skills.”
He admits that the old helped feed his creativity, until it became too much of a mental trap. “It’s really bad when you think you’re in a groove, but you’re really in a rut.”
Now, the groove is cleaner. He sleeps better on the bus, guards what goes into his body, and builds shows that feel like endurance events for both artist and audience.
“I can be their hero for two hours. This is what they wanted me to do, and I did it—I didn’t f**k it up.”
Main Photo: Aliveco