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Scene & Heard

Luke Bryan -- A Day in the Life

theboot.com

"I slept a little bit," Luke Bryan admits at 7:35 AM on August 9, 2011, the morning of the release of his third studio album, 'Tailgates & Tanlines.'

Luke, who has already squeezed in an early morning workout, sits in his dressing room, prepping for a performance on 'LIVE! With Regis & Kelly' at ABC's studios on New York City's Upper West Side.

"It's a little too perfectly round and poofy," he jokes, examining his hair in the vanity table mirror. "It don't matter, I'm going to put a hat on!" he insists with a laugh, a comment that is quickly met with a chorus of "No!"s from his entourage in the room. "You've got great hair! We agreed: you wore the hat last night, so no hat today!"

"Another thing is that we were really able to find some great outside songs," says the country crooner who started his career writing songs for other artists, including Travis Tritt and Billy Currington. "It used to be that I could only sing songs that I wrote. It was nice to finally find an outside song that I could really sing, and it turned out nice on the album. I'm really proud of that."

Luke recalls the days of songwriting for others before he was an established artist himself. "What was funny was that back when other people were recording my songs, I was writing them for me and they just worked for other artists. You use that mentality. I used to just write and not know if it was anything."

But things are a bit different for the 35-year-old entertainer, now a seasoned vet with over 10 years experience in the industry. "When I write them these days, I'm a little more dialed in to who I am as an artist. It's fun taking a song like 'Country Girl (Shake It for Me)' and really making it something fun, something I can put my stamp on."

Luke is relaxed and confident in the green room as he watches Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa interview iconic actress Jane Fonda on live TV. He compares his calm and collected pre-show feeling to the most nervous he ever was before a show, his first Grand Ole Opry performance. "We had 120-some-odd family members drive up. They were so big they counted them as a tourist group!" he remembers. "It's nice to do these things and be relaxed, just because I've done it more," Luke says before heading up to the stage at 8:25 AM for sound check, which included a brief cover of Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance.' But after joking about "zen moments" and "chi" with his band members backstage and dedicating their pre-show chant to another 'Regis & Kelly' guest, 'Jersey Shore' star J-Woww, it's 'Tailgates & Tanlines'
lead single, 'Country Girl (Shake It for Me),' that Luke performs (hat-less, by the way) for the enthusiastic audience.

"Kelly was shakin' it!" Luke exclaims with a smile, as the adrenaline from the high-energy performance is still pumping.

In addition to hitting No. 4 on Billboard's country singles chart, 'Country Girl (Shake It for Me)' has entered the Top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100, a position typically held by only the top pop music artists. Luke, however, isn't too concerned about his genre-jumping mass appeal and the potential backlash from the die-hard country community.

"The main thing is stay true to who you are," he notes. "When it happens unnaturally and when it happens forced, it gets a little weird. You just make sure you love it and that it's the music that you want to be represented by. The rest is just out of your hands. It's up to the fans and the people who buy the album."

All his time spent on the road had the husband and father of two young boys -- 3-year-old Bo and 1-year-old Tate -- meant doing his best to keep in touch with his family back in Nashville. "I talk to my wife two or three times a day, and try to talk to Bo once a day. Tate's one, so he's really not talking yet. Bo just likes me coming home. He gets spoiled quite a bit. Our deal is we go riding around in my truck. He wants to do that, and he wants to wrestle and jump off the bed and jump on me -- that's our deal every night. And baseball."

The family man insists having a wife and kids at home "makes you more grounded, makes you more focused. When you have people that count on you and a family to support, you take things a little more serious. There are bigger consequences. I'm not running in and out of the bars like I used to. It's nice having something solid to come home to."

At 10:30 AM, Luke leaves ABC's studios and is on his way to his favorite spot in New York City, Junior's Cheesecake near Times Square. But not before a barrage of frantic fans from the 'Regis & Kelly' audience intercept him outside to sign autographs and pose for photos. Luke is, of course, happy to oblige.

After a few comments about the fast-paced New York City life and an observation about just how packed the city is with people, the Georgia-born, Nashville-based singer peeks

through the SUV windshield and exclaims, "There's Junior's. I see it like a beacon in the night!"

By 11:15 AM, Luke is already settling in to his first bite of a long-awaited slice of classic cheesecake. "Man, this is so good!" He only makes it to New York about three times per year, after all.

When it comes to his self-proclaimed sweet tooth, Luke blames his mom. "She let me walk to school with a box of powdered donuts and a can of soda in my hand!" he remembers. While Luke enjoys his dessert-before-lunch treat, the starstruck waitress enjoys the sight of a "such a handsome man" at the counter.

Lunch is a cheeseburger, done medium-well, and talk turns to the next 'Tailgates & Tanlines' single, 'I Don't Want This Night to End.' "It's about a guy meeting a girl, and it's the first night that they're hanging out. It's a magical night and he doesn't want it to end. It's got a big fun chorus in it," Luke shares.