Garth Brooks talks about his “Live From Las Vegas” special, possible comeback

Garth Brooks doesn’t perform to sell records these days, or for position on the charts. Since 2009, the country superstar has performed simply for the love of it. Now, TV audiences will get a chance to see what he’s up to these days with the CBS special Garth Brooks, Live From Las Vegas, airing at 9pm Friday, which features the final show of Brooks’ engagement at the Wynn Las Vegas’ Encore Theater. Don’t expect the high-budget, pyrotechnic-laden shows from his 1990s concerts; this is just a man and his guitar.

Brooks, who with 123 million copies of his music sold is the bestselling solo recording artist of all time — and trails only The Beatles for the overall crown — has been happily settled down with his wife, fellow country star Trisha Yearwood, and raising their children along with his daughter with ex-wife Sandy Mahl. Now that the kids are all just about grown up, it’s possible the world could be seeing a lot more of the “Friends in Low Places” crooner, who also has an eight-disc box set, Blame It All on My Roots, also set for release on Friday. He took some time to talk about the special, and offered opinions on the current state of music.

Channel Guide Magazine: What can people who haven’t seen you perform in a while expect to see from your new special?

Garth Brooks: The thing to remember about the Wynn theater is after three years in the thing, you still only see so many people because it is so intimate. … I was doing a fundraiser last night in Houston and this lady had come to the show, and she said, “I gotta tell you, man, when you walked out and it was just you and your guitar, first thing I thought was, ‘Holy cow, I paid for this?’” And she said, “Two minutes into it you had me, and I had the best time.” It’s very sweet to hear that. People kind of allow you to be you.

Trisha describes it as, this is the man she lives with. I guess that’s pretty much it. I’ve seen people say the genius thing, I’ve seen the amazing thing, I’ve seen these quotes, and my quote would be “stupid.” I would describe it as the silliest show on the planet. For some reason, Wynn fell in love with it, and people allow me to do it and make me feel good about it. I get up there and I sing, but I also share stupid, silly stories that are just the Gospel truth because that’s the way I remember them. It always turns out that I’m the victim because I’m the last of six kids and all my brothers and sisters picked on me. It’s fun for me. It’s a trip down Memory Lane every night.

CGM: What’s it like performing these days for you? Is there a different vibe since you’re not doing it to support an album or fighting for a No. 1 hit?

GB: Yeah, you know, I guess I never thought of it that way. I never went that deep into it. Maybe that’s why I’ve enjoyed it so much because there isn’t that pressure of new stuff, old stuff. I’ll play new stuff for them just to try it out on them. They’ve been great, there hasn’t been any YouTube stuff of anything I’ve been trying to keep [private], that I’ve been working on or experimenting on. I feel very lucky.

Garth Brooks Live From Las Vegas CBS

CGM: Take me back to 2009 when you decided to start your Vegas residency. What went into that decision?

GB: It changed everything in my life without changing anything in my life. That’s how [Wynn owner Steve Wynn] came at it from the start. I’ve been lucky enough to have people come to me, even in Vegas, and say, “We want you to do a show here.” The first thing they would do is start throwing money out, but when you start throwing money out, all you really do is transfer it to the people who are buying tickets. This guy didn’t do that. This guy started with the thought of, “You’re going to need a plane to get you to this place and back, and drive it like a car to work every day.” So I said, “Well, what’s this going to cost the people?” And he said, “No, I’m going to take a loss. I’m going to make it up in my restaurants and on my casino floor. But this is good for my guests, and this will be a gift to my guests.”

This guy, I’ll tell you, he didn’t talk like everybody else and he still doesn’t. He’s a very smart man, and everybody who works there — everybody — the drivers, anything … “How long have you been working for Wynn?” “Thirty years.” “Twenty-five years.” Everybody! And I echo that sentiment just working with him since ’09. He’s by far the easiest guy I’ve ever worked for. We do everything on a handshake and if we want to add another weekend, we just call each other and go over the details, agree to it, and that’s how we do it.

CGM: Is it going to be different for you performing this time since you know it will be on live TV?

GB: I’m going to try for it not to be, but I can’t help some of it. The big thing that everyone’s panicking over is the commercial breaks, because this show just rolls and doesn’t stop. To start it, stop it, and what to leave out — because this show is easily two hours and 15 minutes in its entirety, and with commercials and everything we might get, I don’t know, 80 minutes out of it or something. That’s the tough part, what to leave in, what to leave out, and to get the crowd back up every time you come back. I think there’s eight commercial breaks in a two-hour special. Then of course there’s the live thing, but here’s the great thing about the live thing: People have always let me suck. They have always just kind of got the rawness of it. It’s just me and a guitar, and it’s probably going to go out of tune, I’m not going to hit half the notes, and they seem to let it go because they feel how sincere I am, how lucky I feel to be playing music again and telling these stories and having fun.

CGM: What are Vegas crowds like?

GB: They’re great. We’ll stop and take requests and talk to people because the farthest seat from you is 77 feet. There’s 1500 of them and they’re on top of you. You can hear them breathing. So we’ll stop and talk to them. The questions is always, “Where are you from?” and then “What brings you to Vegas?” and a lot of them say, “We came to see you.” I’m like, “Well, I hope you have something else planned.” (laughs) But no, that really means something, and a lot of times you see them several times over one weekend.

CGM: What are your thoughts on current country music?

GB: I have teenage daughters, so they’ve got it blaring everywhere. I’m one of those guys who appreciates things from the past … but tell me what’s new, tell me what’s happening. There’s a big change going on in music right now and that’s the basic structure of it. It used to be verse, chorus, verse, bridge, or verse, chorus, solo … there was always about three or four structures you could think about. In today’s music that structure is a lot freer. So now there might not even be a verse to start it, they might start it with something else entirely. It really reminds me of the early ’70s when people were doing a minute and a half intros without any words. Anything and everything goes now, which is pretty cool. It’s not how I write, but if I were to do anything new, I would depend even more heavily on the great songwriting from Nashville and L.A. and New York. I gotta tell you, I like it. I like the freedom that it’s bringing, I like the doors that it’s opening to where we haven’t gone before.

CGM: What goes into that decision of whether to do something new?

GB: There’s always fear. I’ve gotten really spoiled in the last few years of sitting on my big ass and people telling me how much they would love to hear new stuff. Well, you know as well as anybody that as soon as you bring new stuff, all people say is, “Well, I like the old stuff.” You’re scared to death, you’re trying to make that choice whether you leave the legacy or you keep experimenting and revealing yourself. That hasn’t been an option for us because of the children, but now the children are getting grown, so that option may be coming to us. We have one baby left in high school, and it’s Sandy and Trisha’s and my job to make sure those girls get out of high school and after college. We’ll see what our life is after that.

CGM: What is some new music that you enjoy?

GB: That Bruno Mars guy is killer. He’s got a lot of great stuff, but what I love about him is watching him. You can see in his face that this guy feels lucky to be playing and he has a great time playing. The thing he did with Sting on the Grammys killed me. It was fantastic. My girl is into Ed Sheeran. Adele has always been big in our house, even before she was Adele. … It still comes down to the creators. Michael Jackson was always the most talented guy on the planet, but we’re staring at Beyonce who could easily rival Jackson. This gal’s got it in aces. Lady Gaga, she is one of the most talented kids to ever play music, and then Miley [Cyrus]. Holy cow. This gal, if you ever see her play … first off, she’s one of the most beautiful things ever, and then there’s her talent. Her band is a crack band. I saw them play an event in Minneapolis, they were playing live and she was singing live and it was dead on. I’m like, “Damn, this girl’s a lot more talented than I ever gave her credit for.” With the new crop, it’s the same thing when I was new, the same thing as when The Eagles were new, if you can survive your own youth, then you can have a long career in this business. This is a good time to be looking at creating new music right now, because there’s a lot of interesting things happening.

Photo: © 2013 Mark Tucker