When Hurricane Irma tore through the Caribbean in the late summer and early fall of 2017, causing devastating destruction to islands including Antigua and Barbuda, St. Martin, and U.S. Virgin Islands like St. Thomas and St. John, the damage affected so many, including Kenny Chesney, who owned a home on St. John and made many friends there over the years. Through the experience of seeing friends of his trying to recover, including himself, the country star put together his 17th full-length studio album Songs For The Saints.
Songs For The Saints, co-produced with Chesney's longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon, includes 11 new songs and features from artists like Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Buffet, and Mindy Smith. Prior to the album's official release, Kenny shared songs with fans like the album's title track "Songs For The Saints," "Get Along," "Pirate Song," and "Better Boat."
Back in May, Kenny revealed that Songs For The Saints is about "the places that save us." He went on to say in a note posted to social media, that Hurricane Irma happened when he was "at a turning point in [his] life on so many levels." He added of Songs For The Saints, "This album isn't about St. John so much as it's about what happened to St. John and all those islands you didn't see on the news. To just see the devastation and what that does to people is one thing, but then there's this courage and resilience people find."
Kenny recently opened up about Songs For The Saints, including what it was like making the album while receiving messages from friends about dealing with the effects of the hurricane, how he hopes this album will help to rebuild the islands affected, how he named his new album, and more. Read on below.
On making the album in real time during the hurricane:
"I think that there's one obvious thing that stands out about this record. In previous records, every record that I've ever made was a reflection of my life; a reflection of experiences. It was looking back on a relationship or just a life experience. This album was not made that way. It was made in real time. It was made in the moment as these storms were happening as all of the people were trying to get off an island in the middle of all this chaos, and all the anxiety that came with it. And I never made a record like that. It was a strange way to create; it was a beautiful way to create, but it was a tough way to make a record because I was in there singing these songs and recording these tracks as I was getting 100 e-mails and texts a minute about what people needed, and who was getting off island and who couldn't get off island, and it was just ... there was a lot of mental work that I was doing aside from making this record in the middle of making it. But, that's a glaring difference of any other record that I've ever made was just the level of stress and anxiety that was in the room when we made it. But like I said, it made me hyper-focused. I'm very proud of the result."
On how Songs For The Saints originally didn't intend to be a full album & how he hopes it will help to rebuild the islands affected by the hurricane:
"I didn't really know exactly what it was gonna be. I just knew that I'd written 'Songs for the Saints' and 'Love for Love City.' And I had a few other songs that I thought that might fit on this record, but I didn't really, at the time, know that it was gonna be an album. I didn't know that Songs For The Saints was gonna be a record. It was just a way of me, honestly, dealing with everything that was going on inside of my brain, inside of my heart, and it was truly a way of therapy. I never saw this record coming to be honest with you. It was something that I probably would have rather not done because it took a lot of devastation and destruction to make this record. But, I think it's important for people to know that this album is not about the devastation and the destruction, it's about the people, and it's about their heart and their spirit, and how they changed my life, and what's important to me, and everything that I've been through down there with them, and a lot of life that I've lived. So, I didn't know it was gonna be a record at first, but after I cut 'Songs for the Saints,' and 'Love for Love City' with Ziggy Marley, all of a sudden, it was leaning that way to make a record, and I knew that I was wanting to do something to really help on a much broader scale, and I knew that making a record and giving all the money to help rebuild the Virgin Islands was the way to go."
On working with Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Buffet & Mindy Smith:
"There are three songs on this record that I have guest vocalists on. 'Love for Love City' with Ziggy Marley, 'Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season' with Jimmy Buffet, and 'Better Boat' with Mindy Smith. All three of those voices, all three of those singers, and all three of those artists, they have been a thread of my life in the islands. So many days I've sat and lived with Ziggy's music. I've lived with his father's music and his family's music, with a lot of my family and a lot of my friends down island. And Jimmy, I think, not just for me but for a lot of people, really taught us all how to paint a picture with words about characters, and moments, and places, and all of his experiences in his life, and I really was drawn to that when I first started writing songs. He was such a part of our boat trips and our days in the islands. And, so it's very authentic and real to have Jimmy on this record on a great song that he wrote several years ago about his own reality. And Mindy Smith was so much a part of my life early on when I first moved down island. I watched a lot of sunsets with a lot of great people, a wonderful circle of friends, with her voice. Her voice was the soundtrack to a lot of days spent just watching the sun move across the sky and just being still, honestly. And that's what her voice brought to my life a lot of. It brought calm and stillness in the middle of a world that wasn't very calm and very still. So, I thought it was important to have that voice on this record. It just connected the dots for me in a lot of ways and Mindy is such a special person, a special artist, and when I hear her sing on 'Better Boat,' it gives me that same calm and still that it did. It gives me that same calm and stillness that it did years ago when I first started going down island. It just soothed my soul, and it still does, and she's wonderful. I'm really glad that she's on 'Better Boat.'"
On how he named his new album Songs For The Saints:
"When I wrote 'Songs For The Saints,' I was obviously thinking about my circle of friends over the years there, but I was also thinking about the generations of people that made up those islands, and everything they'd been through over the years. This wasn't the first storm to hit the Virgin Islands. And they have a way of overcoming, and they have a certain back bone and a certain spirit that allows them to overcome things in a way that I really respect, and in a way that's inspiring. And I had that in mind when I was writing the song. I thought about the influence all those people have had on my life, and my creativity, and the path it took me down in a lot of ways. And all the friends that I met there over the years, and lived so much life with. It's fed me personally, fed my soul, fed my creativity. So after the storm, I was thinking about all of that. I was thinking about all the faces I'd seen over the years, all the moments spent just living life to the fullest, and trying to live in the moment, which is impossible, really, for me to do when I'm working because I'm always planning to do something else. So that's why those days and those moments were really special to me.
A good friend of mine gave me that title right after the storm called 'Song for the Saints,' and that's where it started. And it started with a phrase of 'We're just a sinners' choir singing a song for the saints.' And I knew that once we had an album cycle and more songs to go with that, that that was going to be the name of the record, because all those other songs were just a collection of songs that was hopefully going to help a lot of people heal. But I realized this music was going to go to the rebuilding process, and to be honest, to help rebuild the human spirit also. All those people that make up the Saints ... St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. Johns, St. Barts; I knew this music was going to be for them, and so that's where the title came from."
Listen to some of Kenny Chesney's Songs For The Saints tracks below.