Dierks Bentley Reflects on Time Off the Road, Hints at New Album

It's probably tempting for many artists to completely veg out when they return from being on the road for months at a time. But if Dierks Bentley feels that urge, he certainly doesn't talk about it. Fans will be excited to know that during his time off the road after his 2014 Riser Tour, he began working on a new album.

Bentley hasn't always had the luxury of unpacking his tour bus. He told The Boot and other media outlets at a recent event that, up until recently, he toured non-stop. In fact, when others would say, "You're starting a new tour?" Bentley would respond, "How do you start one? I never ended one ..."

"This is the first year in 10 to 11 years that we actually returned a bus to the bus company; we had to get all of our stuff off the bus," the singer adds. "That hadn’t happened since "What Was I Thinking." We had a majority of this year off."

But while he was off, the country star worked -- a lot.

"I worked on music," Bentley says. "I wrote, like, five days a week, sometimes got seven songs a week."

Bentley took his own advice to songwriters, which is to write daily. And, here's the fun part -- when he the tour ended, Bentley also went into the studio; he cut nine songs and tried to hone in on what his next album would entail.

"The next record’s going to be number eight. Just experimenting with themes, ideas, trying to find something common to kind of write around," he says. "Hopefully it’s not grief-driven. Hopefully it comes from something else."

Though he filled his tour-free days with work, Bentley was also able to take a short trip to Jamaica with his wife, Cassidy Black -- their first time away from their kids since they were born.

Bentley recently kicked off his 2015 Sounds of Summer Tour, and he admits that he's been too busy planning the tour to pick up a pen in a while.

Where Does Dierks Bentley Land on The Boot's List of Country Music Risk-Takers?

You Think You Know Dierks Bentley?