West Hollywood, California -- After Kenny Chesney won his fourth "Entertainer of the Year" award at the 2008 Country Music Association Awards, he came backstage and said very candidly, "I didn't think we were going to win one of these tonight."
The next year, a 19-year-old freight train named Taylor Swift rolled in and snatched the trophy.
But that doesn't mean the singer from East Tennessee hasn't got game left.
His new CD, "Hemingway's Whiskey," is currently No. 1 on Billboard's pop and country charts -- his sixth album to accomplish that feat. "I'm still very competitive," he said, sitting in a suite at the swanky London West Hollywood Hotel in West Hollywood,California.
Yet these days, accolades don't mean as much to the 42-year-old singer-songwriter as they once did. "My views on those things have changed a little bit because those awards don't drive me. It's not going to change my passion to do what I do, and how much I give my fans when I go on stage."
For Chesney, it's all about protecting that passion. After eight straight summers as the only artist in any genre to sell more than a million tickets, he took a break from touring this year. Was he kind of burned out?
"Not kind of. I was," he states flatly. "The moment it becomes redundant, it becomes mechanical. And that started, to be honest with you, on-stage a little bit last year."
So he stayed home and poured everything he had into the new disc. "There is a lot of having fun on this record. There is a lot of looking back on this record. There is a little bit of falling in love on this record. There's a little bit of letting go on this record. There's a little bit -- no, a lot of remembering someone on this record."
When asked if he's thinking about anybody in particular, a publicist stirs on the other side of the room. Chesney just laughs. In 2005, he was briefly married to actress Renee Zellweger. "Everybody's got that person," he says.
Fans and inquiring minds will no doubt mine his lyrics for hints. "Good luck," he said. "I'm trying to figure that one out myself. It's all riddles and illusions."
CNN spoke with the Nashville-based superstar on the day he learned "Hemingway's Whiskey" would debut as the No. 1 album in America -- at the same time "The Boys of Fall" had become his 20th No. 1 country single.
CNN: Are you going to be returning to the road after a summer off?
Kenny Chesney: I did take a lot of time off this year from the road -- creatively, emotionally, mentally, personally, artistically, you name it. I needed that break. We're going to go next year and tour pretty hard. There's a sense of anticipation about it now with me and the band, and I see them and they're ready.
CNN: Looks like your hiatus did you some good.
Chesney: I couldn't have done the things that I got the opportunity to do this year if I had been on the road. This album wouldn't have been the same. I made a documentary film on football that definitely would not have been possible if I had been busy and in a different city everyday. So creatively, this was one of the best years of my life.
CNN: Football seems to be a recurring theme in your life.
Chesney: I'm very passionate about sports.
I always have been, ever since my father took me to my first Tennessee football game as a kid. He was a coach. Where I grew up in East Tennessee, we didn't have a lot. We had church, we had school, we had friends, we had family and sports -- mainly football. I came from a place and from a town where the community literally leaned on their football team. When I heard the song, "The Boys of Fall" -- there are a lot of communities across America like that. In a way, the core values that football brings are a lot like those core values that resonate with our country.
CNN: In the video for "The Boys of Fall," there's a picture of you at a high school football game with your mom and dad.
Chesney: That's one of the few pictures that we have together, because they divorced when I was really young. That picture is pretty special. It's my last night of playing football ever. My last home game when I was in high school.
CNN: But you're no stranger to football stadiums. You play them. You sell them out.
Chesney: We get there on a Friday morning. We do sound check on a Friday night, and after the band goes away, I take a golf cart with my road manager, and we drive all the way up to the top of the stadium. I want to see for myself how far that distance is, and feel how far that distance is. If I can touch those people, then all the other people are really going to be touched. I think about that when I'm on stage.
CNN: Even though you took some time off, you really didn't stop working.
Chesney: Well, I have to. As a songwriter, you're never off -- for me, anyway. There's a certain mentality of people that decide, "Oh, we're going to try to write songs from this time of the day to this time of the day." Almost treat it like a real job. I can't do that. I've never been able to write songs like that. You never know when something creative is going to hit you, or emotion or whatever. You can take it, and turn it into something that makes somebody feel something. I love that about my job.
CNN: You're somebody who gives everything to your fans, but when you're off, you don't really feel the need to put your private life out there.
Chesney: The majority of my life is on public display, and it's a spectator sport -- the majority of it. So that's the only thing that I really have for myself, and so that's the way I choose to keep it.
CNN: Is it tough to keep it?
Chesney: It's getting tougher. But for the most part, it's pretty easy for me. There's still jabs here and there, but it comes with it, you know. I love my life. I love what I get to do, and I get to have music in my life. To have certain inconveniences because of that -- it's okay. I wouldn't trade it.
CNN: Think you'll ever want kids someday?
Chesney: Sure. I hope so. Yeah. I mean, I don't wake up everyday thinking that I'm missing it, you know what I mean? I really don't.
But if that happens, I'll be really happy, and I would like to have that happen to me one day. I don't think that my life in the next 10 years is going to revolve around catering at 5:00 and "meet and greets" and going out and playing every night. I hope to some extent that it does, but I think that anybody who does what I do for a living at the level that I've been doing it -- and you don't even have to be a musician, you can be whatever it is. I think there is a constant balance when you give everything to one thing, and that's what I've been doing for a long time. And so to answer your question, I do want that scale to tip just a little bit.
CNN: Do you think you'll get married again?
Chesney: Sure, I hope so. Yeah, I think I will. As long as I can really give to it, you know. I think that's becoming more and more doable in my life.
CNN: Do you still feel like you've got stuff to prove out there?
Chesney: Every day, every night. Always got something to prove. Every day.
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