Garth Brooks Reveals What He Loves Most About Country Music

Garth Brooks has spent decades at the top of country music, but nowadays he’s looking at his place in the genre a little differently.

Garth Brooks Gets Honest About His Place in Country Music

After years of being one of the artists pushing country music forward, Brooks has reached a point in his career where he realizes he’s now part of the “old guard.”

Instead of looking at that as a bad thing, he sees it as an opportunity to help the next generation.

Brooks sat down with ABC 7 in Washington, D.C., ahead of his show there in September and said, “It’s fun to know that now you’re the old guard in the industry and now what your responsibility is for the young guard in there.”

But what Brooks enjoys about country music is that, despite all the changes in the genre, something remains the same.

“What I love about country music is it stays the same decade after decade after decade after decade and the listener stays the same,” he says.

That’s something Brooks has experienced firsthand throughout his career. The connection between the music and the people listening to it hasn’t gone anywhere.

Garth Brooks Says Country Music is Generational

Brooks’ take on the average country fan who comes to his shows is simple: “The people that are here tonight, their grandparents listened to country music their whole life, too,” he says.

That’s what makes country music different for Brooks. It’s not just a genre people discover and move on from. It’s something that’s often passed down from parents and grandparents to the next generation.

I challenge you to find another genre of music that consistently does that. And that is one of the reasons that Brooks says, “That’s what I like, it’s a family.”

Garth Brooks Loves Performing in Arenas

Brooks talks about going to arenas instead of stadiums on this tour. “When you get in these arenas and you hear them sing, it sounds like songs they were raised on, it sounds like them. It’s easy for them, just like breathing in and out.”

For an artist who has spent so much of his life onstage, that’s still something that means a lot.

Read More: Garth Brooks Reveals the Reason Behind His Move From Stadiums Down to Arenas [Watch]

He said, “That’s very flattering as an artist to get up here and hear your stuff sang back to you.”

At this point in his career, Brooks could focus on his legacy. Instead, he’s thinking about what’s next and how he can help the younger artists coming up.

And if he is right, the best part is that the music doesn’t have to change all that much. The artists may change, but the family keeps singing along.