Chesney readies album for late spring

This will be his first for Warner Nashville. No album title or track list was released, nor a specific release date.

"No Shoes Nation are the most passionate people I've ever seen," Chesney said. "When I started listening to songs, even before 'Songs for the Saints' came together, I was thinking about how incredible they sounded on Live From No Shoes Nation; about all the stories people tell me about what the songs mean to them, how they've been part of their lives. It makes you want to really write, find and record stuff that measures up to that."

Chesney amassed songs, experimenting in the studio and working to find the right mix of sounds, themes and feelings for the follow-up to 2018's "Cosmic Hallelujah."

"People tell me their stories, what a song has meant, where and when they've played it, funerals, weddings, big games" said Chesney. "You realize what these songs represent. It's not just a hit record, but a piece of people's lives, words when they need them, a break or a place to cry...and yes, a lot of times a lot of fun.

"For me, I wanted this record to reflect all that. We have songs with the most rocking guitars and massive drums, but I have a song with just Mac McAnally and John Hobbs, who played piano on so many records, and me. Just listening to those two play, you can hear how much music means to them, too. It's powerful.

"And for the writers, the way we did it wasn't so much 'Let's get some songs...,' as it was, 'Let's get together.' We talked a lot. We laughed a lot. We remembered a lot. It was more about how much we all loved music, diving into talking about how music shaped us. A lot of songs got written after people went home for the night because they were inspired, which is how Nashville was when I first got there."

Chesney kicks off his Chillaxification 2020 Tour kicking off April 18 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.