Dierks Bentley’s headed to Irvine with his Beers On Me Tour, but you still have to buy your own beer

Since he hadn’t seen his fans up-close-and-personal in awhile, country star Dierks Bentley thought it would be a fun idea to reintroduce himself to his buddies on the road and buy a beer for everyone in the crowd at each stop across the country.

Once he started doing the math, however, he was looking at about a $50,000 bar tab per show.

“I mean, I would have been totally cool with that because my fans have spent so much money on tickets to shows throughout the years … but I guess there’s a risk management issue with buying everybody a beer,” he said during a recent phone interview from his home in Nashville, Tenn., ahead of coming to FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine on Friday, Aug. 20.

The gesture would have been fitting since Bentley’s latest outing with Riley Green and Parker McCollum is dubbed the Beers On Me Tour in support of his latest single of the same title.

“We’ll make it happen one day,” he said. “I’m still working on it.”

“Beers on Me” dropped in July and features fellow country singer-songwriters Hardy and Breland, both of whom use only their last names. It’s the second single Bentley has released as he teases his forthcoming 10th studio album. Back in October, he put out “Gone,” which quickly became popular on country radio. As to when the album will officially come out, he said there’s no rush.

“I’m taking my time with it,” he said. “I’m actually going to go back and work on it more in the fall and really dive into it and make sure I have everything I want. I feel like every album is the last … so you’ve gotta make these albums for yourself and something that you can be really proud of down the road. I don’t want to jump and put something out just to do it; It needs to be something really special.”

With all those other albums and over a dozen hit singles under his belt, Bentley, who is now 45, has graduated to the point where he’s currently mentoring and working with the next generation of country artists. When it came time to write “Beers on Me,” it was a simple concept, he said, with Hardy coming in with the idea of “After the year we had, we all need a beer” and Breland jumping in with his smooth vocals and writing the third verse of the track to finish it off. Though Bentley’s the one with more experience, he admits he may actually be learning more from watching them.

“I love this space I am in right now,” he said. “I’m still in the game and getting out there on stage and acting like I’m 17 years old again every night. But, I also get to play a bit of the senior statesman, I guess that’s the role I’m moving into now, and I get to hang out with new artists and pass this thing along. I love watching this younger generation’s shows and seeing how they’re doing it. I still feel like I’m at the top of my game when it comes to the live shows and that energy. And 20 No. 1 singles, that doesn’t hurt.”

After being on the road consistently for more than a decade, Bentley said the pandemic gave him an excuse to slow down and spend quality time with his wife Cassidy and their three children, Jordan, Evelyn and Knox, at their home on Colorado. Though he said he feels lucky to have been in good health and to be in a position to keep his band and crew on salary since the shutdown began, he’s also blessed to have been able to spend so much quality time with his young kids.

“They’re not getting any younger,” he said. “Knox is 7 and that’s my last 7-year-old. I needed this time with them and to recharge, though we did a lot of outdoor activity. I mean, we’d be out doing something and come home, grab a PB&J and head back out for the next thing whether that was biking, hiking, pond hockey or skiing. It was non-stop. It kinda felt like we were all parked at a red light and I could have just sat there in my car and waited for the light to turn green, or I could get out of the car, do some stuff and come back later. I don’t regret it, it was awesome.”

Now that he’s out performing shows again, slapping high-fives and possibly sipping from beer cups that aren’t his own, Bentley said he doesn’t want to see things shut down again, but he’s out “putting my vaccine to work,” he said with a laugh.

At the peak of the pandemic and subsequent live events industry shutdown in 2020, Bentley and his band released an album, “The K is Silent,” as their alter egos, Hot Country Knights. It’s a spoof ’90s-era country act that Bentley and the boys introduced during their live sets several years ago that has garnered a fan base of its own.

Bentley said there’s no stopping his alter-ego Douglas “Doug” Douglason, who fronts Hot Country Knights. That band — whose players all don traditional ’90s country garb including mullets, fringe, cut offs and acid-washed denim — have been taking over the tour dates and claiming headlining status this go around.

“I apologize in advance for these guys and their inappropriate language and behavior — they’ve been cooped up for awhile,” Bentley said. “They’ve been at the last couple of shows we’ve played and they go back out after the show’s over. Like, the show is done, guys, and they’ve commandeered the stage and are calling themselves the headliners. I would advise people that as soon as you hear ‘Drunk on a Plane,’ you can leave and go to your cars. Unless you want to hear some ’90s country music … and nobody wants to hear that, right?”

Dierks Bentley

With: Riley Green and Parker McCollum

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 20

Where: FivePoint Amphitheatre,14800 Chinon, Irvine

Tickets: $40-$300 at Livenation.com