It’s becoming apparent that Silver Sands Marina, Kenny Chesney’s 21st studio album and first for independent HEY NOW, sees the Country Music Hall of Famer hitting not just a new gear creatively, but connecting with fans on an even realer level. With “Carry On” becoming his 100th charting single and giving him the most Top 10s in the genre, the life-affirming midtempo summer anthem also struck a chord with radio as it became only the third song in history to close out all the reporting stations its first week.
As “Silver Sands Marina” established the power of one perfect encounter being enough, not clinging but appreciating what things are for the moment, the title track set a tone that suggests a map for how to live life as it comes, for all its worth, and with all the positive energy that’s defined his career. And on July 31, the East Tennessee songwriter-superstar will offer another taste of what’s to come on a project he’s personally labeling “an album.”
“Burn My Boat” starts as a ballad-leaning-midtempo strung across an acoustic guitar figure and his unadorned vocal, but quickly builds to a stunning crescendo that is thundering drums, a muscular melodic swoop and a triumphant sense of arrival. With an opening line of “This is one of those uncharted water things, never been where the grass don’t get more green… Think I love where I am,” the first track on Silver Sands Marina suggests that finding where we belong is a kind of freedom that is as much acceptance as it is actual location.
“This was always the first song,” Chesney says. “No matter how many sequences, adding those three songs, ‘Burn My Boat’ was the exact thing I wanted to say, and it’s in the chorus, recognizing ‘where I’m supposed to be’ is that sense of true arrival, knowing where you’re supposed to be. When you’re restless, and I am, there is no greater peace or freedom.
“Even more, ‘Burn My Boat’ wasn’t a song of surrender, but arrival. It builds and builds, like Lord Huron’s 'Ends of the Earth,' but what it delivers is what I think most of us are hoping to find. That line: Take this heart and light it/Send it up in smoke? It really is burning off all the things that distract us from what matters in this faster, harder, more world we deal with.”
Written by Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Casey Beathard, Tucker Beathard and Ryan Tyndall, “Burn My Boat” can be a love song, a life song, a work or chasing one’s dream song. “Whatever’s one’s truest passion is, when you find it, everything else falls into place and makes sense,” offers the man who just wrapped his second Sphere residency and named his No. 1 New York Times best-seller Heart Life Music.
For Chesney, who came of age as a songwriter at Acuff Rose Music Publishing, he brings a deep commitment to the music he releases. Silver Sands Marina raises the bar – in terms of what it says, the progressive and classic songs – for an artist with impossibly high standards. He will discuss the process, the decisions and what he hopes people will take way from the album when he returns to TalkShopLive July 30 at 7 p.m. ET. To tune in or to purchase the TalkShopLive exclusive signed picture disc vinyl, click HERE.
With a Sept. 25th release date, Silver Sands Marina draws ever closer. Pre-Save or Pre-Order HERE.
Kenny Chesney Returns to Talk Shop Live 7/30; Ltd Signed Picture Discs Tied To Appearance
Kenny Chesney has spent the past couple years amassing songs, thinking about life and breaking ground almost everywhere he’s gone. But beyond the Country Music Hall of Fame induction, two Sphere residencies and a New York Times No. 1 Hardcover Nonfiction and Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction debut, he remains – first and foremost – a music man.
And that was more than apparent with the response to “Carry On,” his debut single on indie start up HEY NOW Records. Only the third time – and first for an independent label – a single locked the entire reporting country radio panel in its release week, the response to the life-affirming midtempo celebration of bartender wisdom suggested the 8-time Entertainer of the Year was hitting a new gear artistically and connecting with the voracious No Shoes Nation.
“People thought it was crazy when we made the moves we made,” says the high impact performer. “But I knew I wanted to color outside the lines, create an album that was about the music, how it feels and what it’s saying… and everything about it has felt right.”
That freedom led to Silver Sands Marina, an eclectic collection of songs that explore the moments where things change, reckoning with the price paid, but especially the thrill of being wholly and unabashedly alive even on the hard days. That ability to find the joy has defined Chesney’s positive energy, dig in and sow the love reality.
For one night, the East Tennessee songwriter/superstar returns to TalkShopLive for an in-depth conversation about the process that saw Chesney make a final track call that added three new songs after the album was done. Having cut his professional teeth as a songwriter at Acuff-Rose Music, as well as a kid playing for tips on a much different Lower Broadway, the man the Los Angeles Times called, “The People’s Superstar” understands the power of not just isolated songs, but how they fall together.
Viewers can watch and shop signed exclusive picture disc vinyl, standard vinyl and CD on July 30 at 7pm EDT at this link: https://talkshop.live/watch/fvRzP4UAS_kb
“In a world where it’s all about the algorithm, I want to believe there’s still room for a kid with a guitar, songs in their heart and a bunch of friends who want to chase it with them. To me, how I got here was a lot of fun, and it let me learn from so many amazing people – and to understand more than the mechanics, the heart of what songs deliver when they’re together and I want to pass that on.”
Beyond the first conversation about the project, to mark the occasion Chesney and HEY NOW are creating a special limited edition picture disc to supplement the signed vinyl and CDs available exclusively through TalkShopLive.
“TalkShopLive gave me a great place to deep dive into Heart Life Music before it was published; it created a real conversation about trying to connect with not just my audience, but people who wanted to chase a dream nobody saw coming. I was surprised the people who told me they’d watched it, or the video after…
“When they invited me back on – because of the way they heard this music – I was all in. A lot went into making Silver Sands Marina, wanting to create something that was authentic. It’s country. It rocks. It’s philosophical in places. But every single song takes you somewhere. TalkShopLive lets us dig into all of it, and I love that.”
Kenny Chesney Takes You to "Silver Sands Marina" in Video Out Today
In a world of singles and tracks, it’s easy to forget the power of a song that delivers not just the smallest details, but the emotional tidal waves that exist long after a moment has faded. For Kenny Chesney, who announced his 21st album and second teaser with the title track to Silver Sands Marina, the sweeping midtempo so completely painted the place and sensations, there was only one thing to do: make a video.
“When you hear the song, it’s so perfectly drawn, you almost can’t believe it’s real,” the man Wall Street Journal called “The King of the Road” says. “But, of course, it is a real place – located on Lake Winnipesaukee – where generations of families and friends have tied up their boats, checked in, enjoyed the water and being together. You can feel all the happiness and fun people have had there the moment you step on the property.”
Ablaze with curiosity, Chesney wanted to see what inspired the song’s ability to hold such subtly indelible feelings. Realizing it was a family owned business, the 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee decided to – almost in keeping with the song’s off-season storyline – check-in, and create a video that instills hyper-local, off-the-beaten-path places with an innocence and charm that transcends the bigger, slicker reality of today’s escapes.
Filming on a grey day shortly after recording the title track of his Sept. 25 release, Chesney is seen in single performance pieces around the pier, the motel and marina’s property. Filming outside the traditional tourist seasons, the Silver Sands Marina delivers that anticipatory tension that it isn’t abandoned, but waiting on something – and Chesney’s to-the-camera vocals and guitar-playing suggest a witness to all that has happened there.
“Like the song, there’s a sense this place can’t be real,” Chesney says. “When you pull up, it’s even more wonderful than the pictures. You can feel people’s lives have played out here; kids who’ve met, grown up together, occasionally gotten married and brought their kids there; fishing trips and reunions. And, as my song suggests, the occasionally unexpected encounter where you meet someone who sees you for all that you are – even if it’s only for a moment.”
Working with longtime collaborator Shaun Silva, Chesney fashions a clip that surrenders expectations for a full immersion in the moment. Those downstrokes on his acoustic guitar an extension of the passion; his vocals transporting himself – and the viewer – to a memory that retains all of its vibrance. Whether an empty pool waiting for summer, knotty pine wood and tired pink paint, or lake water rippling, the clip offers a real-world escape from the mundane.
So taken with the setting, Chesney and photographer Allister Ann documented the day turning to night. Whether portraits of the East Tennessee songwriter/superstar or almost portraits of the setting itself, the photographs delivered a different feel for the stadium-sized headliner. They also suggest the emotional depth beneath the album’s feel-good moments and simple wisdom.
Built around a memory that will last a lifetime, the song and video suggest escape is as much a state of mind as it is the rainy afternoon, 20-dollar blinds, pink painted walls, wet sand, bicycles propped up, a sky that’s red, orange and blue and a mug stolen as a talisman of the encounter.
Like “Carry On,” which closed out the entire country radio reporting panel in its first week, “Silver Sands Marina” provides a new way of looking at something pretty common. But in that truth that exists right where you are, there’s also the freedom of knowing magic has a way of arriving in unlikely places.
“When the song came in, it took me some place,” Chesney marvels. “But it also said a lot of things about where we can find real fulfillment. For me, the more I listened, the more I knew I had to see this place… And once I did, I knew I had to show it to all the people like me, who dream of freedom and escape, but who also know showing up is the spark that makes it happen.”
Kenny Chesney Announces SILVER SANDS MARINA, 21st Album, Sept. 25
When Kenny Chesney made the decision to follow his heart instead of doing business as it’s always been done, he knew there’d be work, opportunities he didn’t see coming and the ability to color outside the lines. Aligning with HEY NOW Records, the high-impact songwriter/superstar found himself inspired in new ways – and digging even deeper into his already legendary commitment to creativity.
With “Carry On,” HEY NOW’s debut single, being the first independent single and only the third ever to lock out the country radio reporting panel in its first week, quickly evolving into the Song of Summer, Chesney dug in, made revisions, added songs and is ready to deliver Silver Sands Marina for a September 25 release date. The new album epitomizes everything that the only country artist in the Top 10 of POLLSTAR’s Most Popular Touring Acts of the Millennium embodies: positive vibes, good humor, long drives, moments and memories that will last a lifetime, jettisoning what pulls you down and a sense of how sweet life truly is.
Having just kicked off his second residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, Chesney celebrates by announcing his 21st album: Silver Sands Marina. The Buddy Cannon/Kenny Chesney-produced project arrives September 25. Pre-order / pre-save HERE.
With a history of finding great songs as an album is finished, “Silver Sands Marina” delivered a gateway to a project that’s definitive Chesney. Mining some of Nashville’s greatest songwriters, including Tony Lane, Matraca Berg, Shane McAnally and Brett James, emerging powerhouses Jessie Jo Dillon, Tenille Townes and Adam Wright and guests Colbie Caillat, Lily Meola and Megan Moroney, the eight-time Entertainer of the Year and 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee has created something personal, reflective, empowering and euphoric in places.
“I love everything about music, but especially how it makes you feel,” Chesney explains. “It can crack open a tough moment, lift you up, blow you up and make you laugh harder than anything. When I started thinking about all the things music can be, a few songs came in – and Silver Springs Marina, as it now exists, took shape. Some great players, guests who really fit the songs, but especially some places I’ve never gone.”
Using TalkShopLive to kick-off Heart Life Music, his double No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, Chesney returns to the platform on July 15 to dig into the process, what he hopes people take from the album, and what he’s learned about music’s power to bring people together and transform even the toughest moments. Autographed copies of Silver Sands Marina are exclusively available on TalkShopLive. Tune in HERE.
“Silver Sands Marina” drops today as the second taste of Chesney’s upcoming music. Containing both a place and a vibrant connection, it’s a burning moment forever frozen in time. With even more evocative, visceral songs ahead, Silver Sands Marina delivers what Chesney does best.
