Dierks Bentley’s Next Album Held Up By Jaegermeister Trek

Dierks Bentley is hard at work on the follow-up to his Grammy-nominated bluegrass CD, 'Up on the Ridge.' But while fans are eager to hear the new set of tunes, they may have to exercise their patience for a few more months.

"We've cut the tracks for 15 songs, and I'm trying to sing on the record now," Dierks tells Billboard. "But it's impossible for me to do this Jägermeister tour and go in and do vocals, too. So I might have to wait a little longer to make sure I have exactly the best possible vocals I can put on [it]."

The Jägermeister tour, which Dierks is headlining this spring, wraps up May 13, allowing the Arizona native more time to focus on the new album. In the meantime, eager fans will have to be satisfied with the first single from the upcoming project, 'Am I The Only One.'

"I wanted to have something out there for the summertime, and this just felt like the right song for that," Dierks explains. "I've been off the radio for a while because I wanted to make an album that was important to me, musically, but wasn't as commercial. But now I want to be back on [radio] and I wanted my fans to hear our stuff. I just wanted to come back with a song that was fun for fans and fun for country radio and fun for us to play every night."

Still, the happily-married father of two warns that the debut single is not exactly a snapshot of the entire CD. It's "not representative of the whole rest of the album," he notes. "I've always covered a wide gauntlet of stuff, and this album's gonna do the same thing ... I can't think of what to call it except just country, my kind of country music. I don't have a good explanation for it other than it's not bluegrass. There's some fun songs, some heartbreak songs ... and of course being a dad now, too, that works its way in there. I'm really proud of it. I think we developed a cool sound."

Dierks will play tomorrow night (April 27) in Salina, Kan., followed by a show in Bloomington, Ill. See a complete list of his tour dates here.