"This was an important record and an important time for me," says Chesney, who returns Tuesday with his 15th studio album, "The Big Revival," after taking a year off from touring in 2013. "I didn't want to repeat myself, which would have been easy to do. I also didn't want to make the record that everybody's making today that seems to be pretty popular. I refuse."
Over a recording career spanning more than 20 years, Chesney certainly has been no stranger to songs about small towns, celebrations and large quantities of alcohol. There's even some of that on "The Big Revival." At 46, though, Chesney expects more out of his material now.
"I didn't want to make a record that sounded like I made it on a conveyor belt," he says. "And I've been guilty of that."
"The Big Revival's" title track, a song about snake-handling that includes the unforgettable hook lyric, "Praise the Lord and pass me a copperhead," sounds like anything but an assembly-line product. East Tennessee native Chesney doesn't have any firsthand experience with that sort of religious service, but he knows the song will make a heck of an opening number when he hits the road next spring.
As he prepared "The Big Revival," Chesney found himself at a career crossroads. In 2014, he's still one of the 10 most-played acts on country radio — right up there withLuke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line — and the only one to have been putting out hits as far back as 1995, when "Fall in Love" gave him his first big single. His 2013 tour drew 1.2 million fans, second only to Taylor Swift.
However, while "American Kids," the lead single from "The Big Revival," spent two weeks atop USA TODAY's country airplay chart, Chesney hadn't had a No. 1 for two years. And last year's" Life on a Rock" was his first album since his 1994 debut that failed to sell at least half a million copies.
"There isn't an artist out there that isn't two bad singles away from the penalty box," says Gregg Swedberg, program director of K102 in Minneapolis. "Does he need to make hit records? Sure. But he's going to be fine. I listen to this album, and I think he should have a bunch of hits for the foreseeable future."
Chesney had a clear vision of the album he wanted "The Big Revival" to be and how he wanted it to sound: "I wasn't going to be able to do that and be on the road and do everything mentally that I had to do."
The result — whether Chesney's singing about the subculture of faith in "The Big Revival," the '80s suburban youth of "American Kids" or the Bonnaroo-attending free spirit in "Wild Child," a new duet with his "You and Tequila" partner Grace Potter — is an album that celebrates community, especially the one Chesney and his fans have come to fondly call "No Shoes Nation."
"Like the phrase in "American Kids" says, we're 'a little messed up, but we're all alright,' " Chesney says. "That phrase defines my road family, it defines my audience, it defines me — look, you've got to be a little messed up to do this for a living anyway."
He already is gearing up for his return to the road. "I have a 3-D rendering of what my stage is going to look like," he says. "We just don't know when we're going to set it up." And he'll take his own long-standing community out with him: "I've got three or four buddies I went to high school with, went to college with, and they've been with me (in my crew) this whole time."
Chesney expects to play a combination of arenas, stadiums and, perhaps, amphitheaters, with a few special shows thrown into the mix. "We're probably going to do 18 stadiums, maybe a few beach shows here and there, who knows? Maybe a couple of acoustic shows in some theaters.
"I think it'd be interesting to go into a stadium market but go into a theater the night before and play acoustic. Just because."
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