Advertisement

Garth Brooks on Garth Brooks: ‘I don’t get it’

Garth Brooks at his tour kickoff at Allstate Arena in suburban Chicago on Sept. 4.
(Barry Brecheisen / Invision/AP)
Share

Ask Garth Brooks, who plays the first show of his seven-performance run in Atlanta starting Friday night, what the secret of his continuing popularity is, and he’s stumped.

“I wish I could explain it: Of course -- I’m beautiful, are you kidding me? I’m talented,” he said, chuckling. “But I don’t get it.”

Shortly after opening his 11-show stint in Chicago on his first world tour in 17 years, Brooks remains convinced there’s something at work beyond the personal appeal of what he sometimes refers to as “the Garth Brooks guy.”

Advertisement

“If the Garth guy shows up or not, these guys are still going to have the same great time,” he said, noting one bit of fallout from the cancellation of his five sold-out shows in July at the 83,000-capacity Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. “We saw video footage of people in Ireland, at a bar the night we were supposed to be there, singing ‘Friends in Low Places’ and they were having the time of their lives.

“It’s like it’s their show,” he said.

Then he recounted a conversation he had with a female fan toward the end of his last tour in 1998.

“We’re just talking, and she said, ‘You know what I’ve always thought about you?’ I said, ‘Do I want to hear this?’ She goes, ‘I always felt that you were one of us who just got lucky.’ And to be called ‘one of us’ -- that’s pretty cool.

“Man, I’ve roofed houses, I’ve dug ditches,” he said. “I worked down at the wastewater treatment plant [where] you stood in vats that were 50 feet, 75 feet, 100 feet in diameter, and 14 feet high, and you’re cleaning them because they’ve just drained all the [waste] out of them. So [I] know what work is. And every day, man, I just laugh myself to sleep going, ‘Holy cow, this is what I do for a living.’ And a damned good living. So I am very lucky.

“I’ve said this in a million interviews: If there was an answer, if God came down, if a hand came down and opened up and the answer was in that hand, I hope it would say, ‘The music.’ That explains it probably more than anything.”

Calendar will have a full profile of Brooks and his life during the 13 years he stepped away from touring to raise his children in Saturday’s Calendar section.

Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter for pop music coverage

Advertisement