Dierks Bentley has one, expensive closer. The “Cold Beer Can” singer – and some very talented friends – embarked on a 30-stop tour from May all the way to the end of August this past year to celebrate and share his 11th studio album: Broken Branches. Those “talented friends” joining Dierks just so happened to be duo known as The Band Loula, and the young country music star on a meteoric rise: Zach Top. Bentley recently joined 102.7’s Backstage Country to talk about how the tour came together, and how much thought and work he puts into it on the front end to make sure that his fans have the best experience: “Well, we don’t mess around. We put so much time into the tour. When we launch a new tour, it’s all new stage stuff. It’s new video content, new video look, and walls. I mean it starts with just a set list. Me and the band just going over every song we wanna keep in. Do you wanna do ‘I Hold On’ the same way? Do you wanna change it? What new songs do you want to get in there? How do we incorporate Zach Top into the show? How to incorporate The Band Loula into the show?” And while we’re speaking of incorporating other artists into Bentley’s show, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the legendary ’90s country group that no one heard of until the mid 2010s: The Hot Country Knights. The band, which always takes on the encore at Dierks’ concerts, consists of Douglas “Doug” Douglason, Trevor Travis, Marty Ray “Rayro” Roburn, Terotej “Terry” Dvoraczekynski, Barry Van Ricky, and Monte Montgomery. They might look a whole lot like Dierks Bentley’s regular road band… but they are completely different. Dierk Bentley said for a ragtag group of country artists from the 90s, they are quite the expensive component when it comes to planning out the tour: “The Hot Country Knights take up half the production budget.” But it all makes sense when the audience goes nuts for Dierks Bentley in a wig and sunglasses. Whoops, I mean DOUG DOUGLASON. When the crowd goes wild for Doug… that’s what I meant to say. Dierks was happy with what the Hot Country Knights cooked up to finish his Broken Branches shows, and it sounds like he’s heavily involved in the band’s decisions, even though he is just the one that goes on before them: “We got a great ending to the show this year with the Hot Country Knights. The fans have kind of come to expect the craziness to happen there. So that’s a lot of work. It’s just a lot of work, but it’s fun work.” Anything that the Hot Country Knights are involved in is fun. Have you caught up on their latest hits? I’m still holding out hope that we get more original music from the Knights, but until then, make sure you are caught up with the retro band’s most recent contributions: “Herassmeant (feat. Darla McFarland)” “Midknight Rodeo” The post Dierks Bentley Says The “Hot Country Knights” Take Up Half Of His Tour’s Production Budget first appeared on Whiskey Riff.