Jon Pardi Explains Why He Fought to Join Dierks Bentley on Tour in 2017
Jon Pardi is going to have an unforgettable 2017: Beginning on Jan. 19, the "Dirt on My Boots" singer will hit the road to serve as an opening act on Dierks Bentley's What the Hell World Tour.
"It’s going to be hard to beat ...," Pardi recently told The Boot and other reports. "I look at it like another thing that I’m going to work harder to keep doing and still keep climbing."
Pardi previously served as the opening act on Bentley's Riser Tour in 2014. The experience is why he campaigned hard to land an opening slot on Bentley's new trek.
"I love his crew. I love him. I wanted to be back on tour with Dierks, and so when it was rumored the slot was being filled, I was texting Dierks: ‘Hey, man. You know you’re going on tour, you know you need an opening act,'" Pardi recalls. "It was just really cool; all the things came together at the right time.
"It’s awesome to be back on tour with Dierks, because he’s a good guy," the California native gushes. "He’s been kind of a big brother. He always said if I really needed a question [answered], I could call or text him, and that’s a good thing to have, especially with a guy like Dierks Bentley."
Pardi says that he will keep looking to Bentley and other established artists for advice as he continues his country music career. But he's also got an ally on the business side of things: NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) Executive Director Bart Herbison.
"When I first moved to town, I was very melody driven. I had all these cool, catchy melodies, and a lot of the lyrics were dummy lyrics; they were cool, but didn’t make sense. Bart taught me really how to make sense of the songs," Pardi remembers. "I had the melodies, I had the ideas, I needed to connect the dots, and I look up to Bart and the people he introduced me to as a young 23-year-old who just moved to town, very excited about writing in Nashville, making sense of what I was trying to do."
Pardi co-wrote several of the songs on his most recent album, California Sunrise, including its debut single, "Head Over Boots," which became Pardi's first No. 1 hit.
California Sunrise is available for download on iTunes; a list of all of Pardi's upcoming shows is available on his website.
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