Dierks Bentley is in a generous mood. He's just got paid and wants to blow off steam with a few pals at his local bar. To encourage them to swing by, Bentley tells them he's given his card to the barman and the "beers are on me."
Hardy and Breland join Bentley on the song. The three trade verses about brushing off a long week with good company, while offering to pay for everybody's drinks. "I love the idea of just buying everybody a beer," said Bentley. "We all have problems that we're going through, but on a Saturday night or Thursday night or Friday night, whatever night I'm on the road, we've got no problems and that's what this song is all about."
Bentley and Hardy co-penned the fun track with Ross Copperman, Luke Dick and Ashley Gorley. They started the song on a writers' retreat in Telluride over quarantine and finished it back in Nashville.
After Hardy threw out the title, Bentley enthusiastically went along with the idea. He used it not only for the song but also for his first tour following the COVID-enforced break after wishing he "could buy all my fans a beer." Bentley named his 2021 concert tour Beers on Me Tour.
Dierks Bentley launched his High Times & Hangovers Tour on May 11, 2021 at the Windjammer in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. When he debuted "Beers on Me" at the gig, Bentley jumped from the stage, climbed the safety barrier and handed out beers to fans in the front few rows.
Bentley's five-stop High Times & Hangovers Tour was the warm-up to his much longer Beers On Me Tour.
The lighthearted, feel-good video follows Bentley, Hardy and Breland as they hand out free beer to folks in Nashville. Traveling around in a truck, they dish out the booze to unsuspecting locals in various locations, including a dog park, street basketball court, and the honky tonks.
The original plan was for Breland to rap a pre-written verse, but when he came in the studio the country-rapper asked Bentley if he could re-write it a little bit. "We played the track over and over again and he just started pulling things out of the air, laughing to himself, messing with his hair and we're like, 'What is he doing?' and writing stuff on his phone," Bentley recalled to
The Boot. "It was just like watching a mad scientist, and 25 minutes later, he's like, 'Can I play you what I wrote?' and he plays his verse."
Bentley admitted nobody initially had a clue what Breland was rapping about, but they agreed he painted a beautiful picture. "We knew it was great," he said. "'I like my drinks like my roof on the house,' that line, what does that mean? We're like, 'Oh my gosh, he likes free drinks like his roof on the house.' And 'buckets for a Lincoln,' I had to figure out. Was that like a Lincoln town car? What's he talking about? Oh, buckets of beer for $5. He really, as all great songwriters do, [uses] a lot of metaphors, analogies to create a bigger picture than just the one line can do on its own."
Originally, Bentley planned on "Beers On Me" being a duet between him and Hardy. While he was in the studio working on the third verse, Bentley took a break and read an article in the newspaper about a guy named Breland. "It just hit me maybe I should invite this guy in to sing the third verse," he said. "So I got his number and called him, and he came in the next day."
When performing the song at his solo shows, Bentley attempted Breland's high notes in the third verse, but had to admit defeat. "I tried to do the Breland thing for a while and just totally stopped. It was so bad. I used to try it, and it was just embarrassing," the singer told
Taste of Country. "So now no one sings the Breland verse."
