Garth Brooks Breaks Another Record, Reflects on His Popularity: ‘I Don’t Get It’

More than 25 years after Garth Brooks took over the airwaves with his debut single 'Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),' and after a self-imposed 13-year hiatus to focus on raising his family, his popularity remains unmatched. After quickly selling out a series of shows in Chicago and Atlanta, the singer says he still doesn't understand his level of success.

“I wish I could explain it: Of course -- I’m beautiful, are you kidding me? I’m talented,” he jokes to the Orlando Sentinel. “But I don’t get it.”

While Brooks is well known for his highly energetic shows, which keep fans on their feet for the duration of the concert, he says that he hopes it's more than just a couple hours of entertainment that keep his loyal fans coming back for more.

“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,'" he says. "That explains it probably more than anything.”

Perhaps it's a combination of his music and his charisma, minus the ego that inevitably plagues so many artists as they achieve a level of stardom.

“I’ve roofed houses, I’ve dug ditches,” Brooks explains. “I worked down at the waste water 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, 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."

Lucky, and still surprisingly humble. Brooks shares a conversation he had with a fan at the end of his 1998 world tour that sums up his appeal.

“We’re just talking, and she said, ‘You know what I’ve always thought about you?’" he recalls. "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."

Whatever the 52-year-old is doing, it's working. Brooks recently broke his own record for ticket sales in Florida. He originally set a new record for tickets sold in the Sunshine State in 1997, selling 56,243 tickets for five shows, which beat Elvis Presley's record, set in 1975. With the addition of six shows in Jacksonville, Fla., next month as part of his World Tour, Brooks has beat that record, and the tickets continue to sell.

Brooks will play two more shows in Atlanta, Ga., this weekend before kicking off his Jacksonville shows on Oct. 10. Get all of his updated tour information here.