Brooks & Dunn have officially dropped their highly anticipated Reboot II album. Out today (Friday, Nov. 15) via Sony Music Nashville, the long-awaited collaboration project and follow-up to the award-winning country duo’s Reboot album features 18 reimagined hits uniquely tailored by the artists, who were chosen for the project.
Star-Studded List Of Collaborators On Reboot II
Like Reboot, which included a star-studded cast of contributors ranging from Luke Combs and Jon Pardi to Thomas Rhett and Kane Brown, Reboot II features a large list of country artists. Brooks & Dunn did not select the vocalists for their latest album. Instead, their label gathered the talent for the project.
They include Lainey Wilson, Morgan Wallen, the Marcus King Band, Megan Moroney, Warren Zeiders, Jelly Roll, Riley Green, The Cadillac Three, Halestorm, Mitchell Tenpenny, The Earls of Leicester, Jake Worthington, Hailey Whitters, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, HARDY, ERNEST, A Thousand Horses and Corey Kent.
Brooks & Dunn Gave Collaborators Creative Freedom
Unlike Reboot, which debuted atop the Billboard Top Country Albums chart — a first for Brooks & Dunn since 2009 — those who contributed to Reboot II were given maximum creative freedom for their respective covers. Not only did artists get to hand-select the song they wanted to remake from Brooks & Dunn’s timeless catalog, but the door for interpretation was wide open.
“[The artists] picked the arrangements,” Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn told Music Mayhem and other media in a recent round-robin. “We basically allow the artist to bring their band if they want…. We’ve got a great studio band if they want to use our producer, Dan Huff, on the project, but if [they] got something else [they] want to do. If you have a great idea, if you guys have been playing this live, if you worked it up, bring your band in, whatever, where you want to record it. It was very much a freedom thing.”
While working on Reboot II, Brooks & Dunn’s approach was: ‘Let’s take this for a ride. Let’s see what happens” as their fellow artists went in and adjusted the original songs to make them their own. Brooks & Dunn tackled specific areas of each song, adding their vocals onto each genre-bending track, but insisted they didn’t do any “pre-rehearsing or anything.”
“We showed up in the studio, and we had a little creative fest and took the songs wherever they wanted to go,” they said. “Once we got in the studio, it was nothing but a party. [It was] really, really fun to get to work with everybody. And there seriously were no egos, no posturing, no attitude on any of these things. It’s like, everybody came in, saying, ‘Let’s have some fun with this.’ And that was the mandate.”
Brooks & Dunn Had A Good Time Making The Project
Even though the project was an all-out good time, Brooks & Dunn insisted, “There are no rookies here, just the fact that we’ve been around a while and have had some pretty unbelievable success for us. We respect everybody who’s in this business working hard and who are real players, and out there doing the thing. And these are all real working, talented people that do the same thing we do. And it’s just interesting that we found a really fun way to get together.”
To their surprise, some of the artists likely to venture into deep creative waters chose to do the opposite. Brooks & Dunn named Big Loud artists ERNEST, HARDY, and Wallen as three singer/songwriters who kept everything within the boundaries of their respective sounds. HARDY chose to render “Hillbilly Deluxe,” leaning into the rock side of his artistry and incorporating electric guitars, thrashing drums, and raucous vocals on his cut.
HARDY
“I said, man, did I hear you’re doing ‘Hillbilly Deluxe?’” Brooks & Dunn recalled a conversation with HARDY. “He goes, ‘Oh yeah!’ I go, ‘Are you just going to tear the hide off that thing?’ He goes, ‘Oh, you have no idea.’ And I really couldn’t wait to hear it. I was not disappointed with his attack on it. It was definitely with a blunt ax, man. He went after it big time. It was pretty cool — brilliant, the way he took the twist on that and did it. It’s one of my favorite cuts.”
ERNEST
ERNEST also played it safe, providing a take on “Indian Summer.” But Brooks & Dunn say, “He picked a song that no one expected. We all turned around and went, ‘What?’ And was excited. I love that song. Oh, he got so fired up. He started talking, if you can come and go, man, I got George Strait all over this thing [and] He loved it, too. He said, ‘It’s Strait, man.’ Sure enough, they did a great job with it.”
Morgan Wallen
Wallen, meanwhile, tackled “Neon Moon” — a song that Kacey Musgraves reimagined on Reboot. On the track, he lets his signature vocals tell the story over a simple melody that likens the original song. “All of those guys sort of played it pretty close to the rails with their takes,” Brooks & Dunn said. “I mean, Morgan, he put some salsa definitely on ‘Neon Moon,’ but it’s not a huge departure like Kasey Musgraves’ was.”
Jake Worthington, the second signee to Big Loud Texas, also stuck close to his traditional ways, with “I’ll Never Forgive My Heart” while Jelly Roll pulled out all the stops on “Believe,” soulfully singing the song in the company of a full orchestra.
Three Of The Most Surprising Renditions On Reboot II
For Brooks & Dunn, the most memorable song on the record is nearly impossible to choose. But, they credit Hailey Whitters’ take on “She’s Not the Cheatin’ Kind,” Mitchell Tenpenny’s presentation of “That Ain’t No Way To Go,” and The Cadillac Three’s version of “She Likes To Get Out Of Town” as three of the most surprising renditions on the project.
“Yeah, there are a bunch…” Brooks shared, adding that the opposite of surprises was Halestorm’s “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and HARDY’s “Hillbilly Deluxe.” “They all took on a new, fresh slant that felt good…. “She Likes To Get Out Of Town,” a song that wasn’t a hit, but The Cadillac Three just took that one as swampy and dark as I could have ever imagined. When Jaren [Johnston] came in with his guys, and they started cranking that up, Ronnie and I just looked at each other and went, ‘Okay, here we go on this one.’ That really was the joy of making this record because we did challenge all these artists. ‘Let’s do this however you want, whatever you can dream up.’”
Warren Zeiders
“Occasionally, there was an artist that with our studio band would go, Warren Zeiders, for instance, with ‘Brand New Man,’ he is like, ‘I’m not really sure. I want to do something cool with this,” he continued. “And I think Ronnie even threw out the word Nirvana, and you can kind of hear some of that going on in there. It’s a cool jam on it. Just not a place we would’ve naturally taken it, that’s for sure.”
Running through Reboot II, there is no weak link. Among the 18 tracks, Megan Moroney delivers a moody take on “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You,” delivering a laid-back, smokey rasp alongside the duo’s vocals. Corey Kent ignites a patriotic, blue-collar attitude on “Only In America” and Christone Kingfish Ingram brings the funk on “Hard Workin Man.”
Reflect On 30+ Years Of Hits
And while Brooks & Dunn’s list of songs seem to stand the test of time, they maintain a modest perspective as they reflect on their early years together. The duo, who has solidified themselves as one of the best-selling duos of all time, has notched over 20 hits in three decades, landed two Grammy Awards, and earned several other awards and accolades.
Looking back, they say, “I think the fact that we wrote our first two number ones the same week we met, we were both just pretty excited. For songwriters, if you write a couple of good songs, you’re immediately pretty excited about trying to continue it and even more so if you get a record deal on top of that.”
“Neither one of us had a record deal, so we didn’t figure it was going to last very long,” they admit. “But here’s something constructive that we’re actually doing…. And we were getting to know each other at the time. As far as what it’s like working together now, we are way more comfortable than we were then…. [We] never had a contract, never raised our voices at each other. Had plenty of moments where we didn’t agree and just went to our separate corners, and pouted for a minute, came back, and went back to work. So we’ve always been pretty professional about how we looked at this, but we’ve sure as hell had a lot of fun along the way, too.”
Despite having enjoyed an illustrious 30+ career run, Brooks & Dunn see no signs of slowing down. In fact, they confirm they’re working on more music.
Next year, they will headline the first annual Sand In My Boots Festival in Gulf Shores, AL, plus launch the first leg of their 2025 NEON MOON TOUR. The trek, which kicks off on March 13 in Lubbock, Texas, will include David Lee Murphy as a special guest.
Catch Brooks & Dunn on the Neon Moon Tour in 2025
March 2025
13 – Lubbock, TX – United Supermarkets Arena
14 – Austin, TX – Moody Center
15 – Corpus Christi, TX – American Bank Center
27 – Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
28 – Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center
29 – Charlottesville, VA – John Paul Jones Arena
April 2025
3 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
4 – Peoria, IL – Peoria Civic Center Arena
5 – Rosemont, IL – Allstate Arena
24 – Des Moines, IA – Wells Fargo Arena
25 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise Center
26 – Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! Center
