Luke Bryan is a proud dad to his two sons, Bo and Tate, raising them much the way he was raised. The Georgia native places a high priority on time together, preferably outside, where Bryan believes the most important lessons are learned.
“I always just go back to the life lessons that always started either in a fishing boat or hunting somewhere,” Bryan says, recalling the time he spent with his father as a child. “That’s why I’ve always been a champion of those types of behaviors, certainly with your boys and your children, because you get to spend time and hand down values.”
Bryan vividly recalls one of the most important lessons he learned from his father, which he still heeds today, and imparts to his own children.
“My dad was always big on just hard work and being good to people, and a handshake is the contract,” the 47-year-old shares. “A handshake is your bond, your word. His famous saying always was, ‘Do something right the first time and you won’t have to go back and do it over again.’ I won’t say I batted a thousand perfectly on that, but I’ve kind of tried to live by that.”
Bryan is enjoying another Top 25 single right now, this time with “Love You, Miss You, Mean It.” The song is from a forthcoming new album, although he admits he wasn’t sure when he first heard it if the feel-good track would be part of a new record or not.
“I’m not thinking about this when I’m ingesting the song,” Bryan shared with Everything Nash and other outlets during a recent media event. “I’m just loving it for what it is. And then we go to record it, and everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, this kind of sounds like vintage, throwback, Luke stuff.’ I don’t realize that, but then it kind of does.
“I think that the title, ‘Love You, Miss You, Mean It’ is so identifiable,” he continued. “And then the story with people. How many people have had the high school sweetheart that they broke up with and wound up living the story of getting back together? I think the song just spoke to me on all those levels.”
Bryan also just released “Mind Of A Country Boy,” a song he wrote with Ben Hayslip, Dallas Davidson, and Rhett Atkins, a songwriting trio known as The Peach Pickers.
“Every time I get in a room with The Peach Pickers we have so much fun because we have so much in common,” Bryan says. “This song not only shows what can run through my mind but also what most us country boys think about on any given day. The girl we love, outdoors, life and not getting above our raising.”
Bryan is currently headlining his Mind Of A Country Boy Tour. Find all of Bryan’s music and tour dates at LukeBryan.com.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Country Music Association