Kenny Chesney’s decision to take 2014 off the road was one that he took very seriously as he focused on making his upcoming album, The Big Revival. And Kenny recently said that the album’s smash first single, “American Kids,” is a song that really reaffirmed to him that while he’d miss the touring, he’d made the right choice. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Kenny’s September 23rd album release, The Big Revival, is available for pre-order now on iTunes, where your pre-order will immediately get you “American Kids” and album track “Flora-Bama.”

  Kenny Chesney knew that he’d found something special with his smash single, “American Kids.” (:48)
“‘American Kids’ for me in a lot of ways validated my decision to take a year off the road, just for the creative process. It was important for me, at this point in my career and in my life as an artist, to not make a record that sounded like I was repeating myself. So, when I heard ‘American Kids,’ I went, ‘There it is. That’s something that’s very unique for me.’ And when you’ve been makin’ records for 20 years, to say that, it’s a blessing, because the way the melody wrapped around the lyric and the lyric wrapped around the melody was unique. But the way they wrote the song, and how it paints a lot of visual images and pictures of a lot of ways that I grew up, it’s very East Tennessee. But the brilliance of this song is I think that it makes everybody think that it’s their small town.”