Dierks Bentley Counting on Cole Swindell, Jon Pardi to Bring Energy to 2017 Tour

Dierks Bentley will kick off the new year with his What the Hell World Tour, crossing the country with opening acts Cole Swindell and Jon Pardi. According to Bentley, having the two men join him on the road might make the upcoming trek his best tour yet.

"I’ve known Cole for a long time ... He was selling T-shirts for Luke [Bryan], and I thought his name was Coal, like a piece of rock ...," Bentley recently told The Boot and other reports. "He’s told me so many times that I’m the reason he moved to town to write songs -- it’s enough that I almost believe him, he’s said it so many times.

"It’s a special thing for him, it’s a special thing for me, to have someone out there that, really, I’ve known for so long, that I’ve been cheering on for so long, who’s obviously killing it," Bentley adds. "That’s important."

The year 2016 has been memorable for both Swindell and Pardi: Swindell has earned two No. 1 singles, "Let Me See Ya Girl" and "You Should Be Here," and Pardi has earned his first chart-topping single, "Head Over Boots." More importantly, though, both guys have developed a large -- and growing -- fan base on their own, and Bentley is excited to watch them try to grow their fan bases on tour.

"I think that the zero, the base level, is you have to have someone who’s going to try to crush the show every night, and you want to win," Bentley says of selecting worthy opening acts like Pardi and Swindell. "You want to take those fans with you; you’re going after them. You’re not just out there to party, you’re out there to attack the stage and go for those fans. [Swindell] has that, but besides that, they’re both just really fun guys ... That energy’s always good for the tour."

Bentley and company will begin the What the Hell World Tour on Jan. 17, at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. The show will be Bentley's first solo concert at Music City's biggest venue -- and the singer admits that he's already getting nervous about the big night.

"It will be a really special moment," Bentley shares. "Just thinking about it -- it doesn’t seem real. It won’t seem real until I peek my head around the corner and see the people out there getting fired up. It’s one of those things, it’s hard to actually think about."

A list of all of Bentley's upcoming shows is available on his website.

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