Kix Brooks admits he was hesitant to agree to a September 11 release of his new album, ‘New to This Town.’ The singer didn’t want to be difficult, but he didn’t think the mood of his first solo album in 23 years matched what he thought the nation would be feeling on the 11th anniversary of the New York City and Washington D.C. terrorist attacks. In the end, he decided he was wrong, leaning on a decision he and Ronnie Dunn made just days after the original tragedy. 

“I did kind of harken back to our first show after the towers came down,” Brooks tells Taste of Country, remembering that the show was just miles from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the jets crashed in a field. “I remember Ronnie and I sitting on the bus discussing whether we should cancel the show or not. Just because we didn’t wanna be disrespectful and with ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ and all the rest of our nonsense. We just didn’t wanna be disrespectful to the people that had lost their lives.”

“At the end of the conversation, we both kind of got pissed off and said, ‘You know, here we are letting these terrorists do exactly what they wanted to do which is change the way they live our lives, and we’ll be damned if we’re gonna let that happen,” he explains.

The duo talked to the crowd about how they felt before the show began, and the response was overwhelming. “I’ve never, ever been a part of a show that moved me like that,” Brooks says. “That crowd was frickin’ nuts that night. And it was all USA and flags waving and people hugging each other and man I kind of feel the same way about this. I think we still respect that day and we still remember that day but at the same time our lives need to continue without letting some terrorist action change what we do.”

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