Dierks Bentley is a praying man, now more than ever. The father of three reveals that as his children get older, he finds himself communing with God more than ever before.
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"The older I get, the longer I pray," Bentley tells Grammy.com. "I'm just grateful every day that I get with my kids. My kids are getting older, and they're getting that independence and stuff. It's a big part of my life for sure."
Bentley has had a lot of success in the last 25 years - not that his daughters or son care.
"Being a dad keeps you pretty grounded," Bentley acknowledges. "Foremost, I feel lucky to get to do what I do, but definitely, 100 percent, my wife and my kids are what's real to me, and I never forget that."
Bentley shares his three children with his wife, Cassidy, whom he wed in 2005. Although his career keeps him from home a lot of the time, the Arizona native hints he is planning something big for their milestone 20th anniversary.
"It's an amazing life we've built together and we need to do something big ... it's been a great 20 years, and [Cassidy is] just really an incredible person," Bentley boasts to People.
Dierks Bentley's New "Broken Branches" Album
Bentley just released his latest album, Broken Branches. The 11-track record includes four songs co-written by Bentley, even though he wrote plenty more.
"I've had plenty of albums where I wrote every song, and those might not have been my best albums," Bentley reflects. "At the end of the day, I wanted to try to tell a story and make an album that's kind of like a book that has chapters and a beginning and an end, and to do that, you've gotta draw from a bigger pool of songs."
Not only does Bentley not feel the need to write all of the songs, but he also doesn't need to know who wrote them. Bentley relied heavily on his manager, Mary Hilliard Harrington, who is listed as one of the producers on Broken Branches.
"Mary Hilliard knows everyone in town, and she's able to go through a lot of songs and help me narrow it down," Bentley says. "And I tell her and everyone, when you send me a song, I don't wanna know who wrote it. Because if I know Ashley Gorley is on it I'm probably gonna be biased towards it, or Ross Copperman or Luke Dick."
