"We both feel like it's just too good a horse to ride it into the ground." -- Kix BrooksBrooks & Dunn are explaining to fans why they're calling it quits after more than 20 years of churning out hit after chart-topping hit. The duo sat down with CMT to discuss the news that has rocked the country music world this week.
"Nothing lasts forever," Kix tells CMT's Katie Cook. "We've had this process of making records and getting ready for tours year after year ... When we were going through, trying to get an album together this year, putting songs back and forth and the push and pulling, it hit us both -- We've done all kinds of music you can think of, done every way we could think of doing it for 20 years ... We've worn this thing every way we know how to wear it! We realized at that point, this may be it ... So how do we wrap this thing up? What's the classy, right way to do it? That's what we're focusing on now -- a great tour, and we're gonna call it Last Rodeo .... We're going to relive 20 years of whatever the heck we've been doing!"
Kix and Ronnie don't deny they are completely different people. But they insist speculation that it was those differences that drove them apart is simply untrue.
"Differences, over the long run, are what make it work," says Ronnie. "You've got to have that room. Neither one of us are breathing the other's air."
The duo will release their final album together, '#1's and Then Some,' on Sept. 8. After a dozen studio albums, CD sales of more than 30 million and countless industry awards over the past two decades, what do they hope will be Brooks & Dunn's legacy?
"Only time will tell," says Ronnie, joking, "I don't even know how to spell legacy!"
"We have pretty big heads, but I don't thing even our egos are quite ready to go there," adds Kix.
Watch the Full Brooks & Dunn Interview
Reader Comments(1 of 20)
bobat 8-14-2009
Brooks was just DEAD WEIGHT
HOT MAMAat 8-14-2009
YOUR AN IDIOT.
Carolat 8-14-2009
Kix Brooks is great, Ronnie Dunn can can sing but his head is way too big and so is is hair!!!
John Tusseyat 8-14-2009
Brooks is one heckuva guitar player, obviously you don't know talent when you see it!! Come on, even a blind squirrel could see that!!!
robinglat 8-14-2009
You got that right. I've been to concerts and have seen performances on TV where they don't even have his mike turned up. Obviously that's why they have the other backup performers. The same goes for his guitar playing. However, he may be an excellent writer and that could be where his talent could best be used. Certainly, good luck to both.
debbie51at 8-14-2009
YOU ARE SUCH A MORON IF IT WASN'T KIX (WHO WAS THE MAIN PERSON WHO WROTE THE SONGS)THERE WOULD NEVER OF BEEN ANY BROOKS AND DUNN. IF YOU WERE A TRUE FAN YOU WOULD KNOW THESE THINGS.
davidat 8-14-2009
OK BOB THEN THAT MAKES YOU RETARDED
ohmwreckerat 8-14-2009
Hot Mama, It should be "you're", as in, you are an idiot. I'm not a fan of the Brooks & Dunn brand of "country music". It's a little too pop for me. I prefer the classics. Hank Sr., George Jones, Merle, Buck, Roger Miller, etc. These two guys look like clowns and their music is dishonest, over-produced garbage.
John, a blind squirrel? You sound like a goldang bumpkin, I tell you what.
Shanna, Montgomery Gentry isn't any better than these bozos.
You people need to recognize the "real" country duos like the Louvins, Everlys, Porter & Dolly, George & Tammy & Gram & Emmylou.
Modern country sucks!
Ronat 8-14-2009
Bob's a moron and Ohmwrecker is just obnoxious. Must really suck to be either of them. Can you imagine having to get up every morning and face the day with attitudes like those? Geez, guy's...Hug a puppy or sumthin!
Justiceat 8-14-2009
Are you kidding???? Ronnie Dunn is the highest paid karaoke singer ever in history!
oscarsmamaat 8-14-2009
Really, Bob? I never liked that rooster Dunn myself --
spudboyekgat 8-14-2009
kind of like that idiot from Sugarland - dead weight!
justmetennieat 8-14-2009
Why do people get such a kick out of mud-slinging. This group must be doing something right. Look at all the awards. True some other are just as good or better, but why put someone down? Is there nothing better to do?? Everyone is different, that what makes the world go around & Living in America gives us the right to be different. Thank God....
hiimkingat 8-14-2009
i hate you beech! joey's the dead weight!
aledolsonat 8-15-2009
You may or may not be right about Ronnie Dunn, but likely there would have been no Lennon without McCartney, no Rogers without Hammerstein, no Phil Everly without Don. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the sum of two is greater than its individual parts. I would be a lesser person without Neon Moon, My Next Broken Heart, Boot Scootin' Boogie. I'm happy they found each other and combined their talents, because they sure weren't much before that. There are very few times when a duet broke up (Wham comes to mind) and one or the other became a bigger smash. Plus, I'm a guitar player, and give my eye teeth to have Ronnie's Telecaster Custom. I always thought that was the guitar that I heard quite often on solos in the earlier albums. Kix's Les Paul is great, but that isn't exactly thought of as the quintissential country axe. Brooks and Dunn has always been a combination of oppsosites, similar to some good marriages I've seen, including my own.