Brooks & Dunn Admit Their Partnership ‘Never Should Have Worked’
Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn enjoyed a 20-year hitmaking partnership as Brooks & Dunn that, in a new interview, they say never should have worked out the way that it did.
Both Brooks and Dunn recently appeared on I Miss … '90s Country Radio With Nick Hoffman on Apple Music Country. The duo responsible for country classics including "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and "Neon Moon" can still remember the wariness they experienced when they first came together to write songs at the suggestion of label executive Tim DuBois.
"We were both pretty skeptical of the idea," Brooks tells Hoffman. "We were both grown men, had kind of been around the Nashville block more than once. We both had kind of record deals that didn't pan out to be much and so when he suggested we write some songs together, we both know enough about how things go around that you got nothing to lose."
What came together as a "why not?" session ended up defining the trajectory of both men's careers.
"We screwed up that week and wrote what became our first two No. 1 songs," says Brooks. "Next thing we know we're like, 'This didn't make any sense at all, just never should have worked.' [As] a duo, we still don't sing harmonies very good."
The duo's less-than-perfect harmonies — and even their breakup in 2009 — haven't stalled their immense influence on country music, however.
"From day one, if there's one thing you want to, years from now, look back and say, and we always said it, was that music would be timeless. The music would define it. And that's all you can ask for," Dunn says of their legacy. "If that music can hang around and do its job, then you made your mark."
Brooks & Dunn's most recent collaboration, Reboot from 2019, features 12 re-recorded versions of some of the duo's biggest songs reimaged as duets with other country artists. The album debuted at No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard 200.
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