Kix Brooks on Leaving ‘American Country Countdown,’ a New Brooks & Dunn LP and He & Ronnie Being in ‘The Best Place We’ve Ever Been’

After hosting American Country Countdown since January 2006, Kix Brooks will step away from the weekly syndicated show at the end of the year to concentrate more on his day job as half of legendary country duo, Brooks & Dunn.

He announced the change Nov. 25, five days after he and Ronnie Dunn won their first CMA Award for vocal duo of the year since 2006, a whopping 32 years after their first win in 1992. The pair also gave a passionate performance (alongside ubiquitous country hitmaker Jelly Roll) of “Believe,” a song featured on the duo’s November collaboration album Reboot II.

The countdown, which airs on more than 300 station affiliates throughout the U.S., is distributed by Cumulus Media’s Westwood One. Ryan Fox, the morning host on KPLX Dallas, has been named Brooks’ replacement and will begin hosting the weekend of Jan. 4-5.

In an exclusive interview, Brooks — who was named the CMA’s national broadcast personality of the year in 2009, 2011 and 2013 — was quick to praise his executive producer Lonnie Napier, network producer Nikita Palmer and Countdown news contributor Suzanne Alexander

In addition to his desire to concentrate on Brooks & Dunn and Arrington Vineyards, which he co-owns, Brooks also hints that ongoing consolidation and cutbacks at the terrestrial radio chains, including Cumulus, had affected his enjoyment of the job. “If I could have continued to do all the things that I was doing early on with the countdown… I don’t think that’s available anymore,” he says. “I think the expense of doing all the things that I was doing… from doing all the interviews, cutting them up the way they’re supposed to be, posting everything online… Probably from just the standpoint of where radio is today, things are just going to have to be tighter.”

Below, he talks more with Billboard about his decision, his big award win and being in a good place with his longtime artistic partner.

We’re a few weeks down the road, but first off, congratulations on your CMA Award for best duo. It’s your first win in 18 years.

It had been a minute. I think we honestly were surprised. We’ve been out of [releasing] new music, working the normal channels, like we did earlier in our career. But we did work pretty hard on the Reboot album, and we toured hard, and I think we were pretty successful on both fronts. If we would have won duo in the last 8-10 years — however long it’s been since we just went to touring and whatever — it would have been embarrassing, honestly. There’s a lot of great new acts that have won the award, deservedly so. But this year, we worked hard, and I wasn’t sheepish about taking our chair at the awards and feeling like we’d earned our spot.

Even though you had already made the decision to step away from American Country Countdown to focus on writing new music and touring with Brooks & Dunn, did the win felt like it was a validation of your decision?  

It’s not that I felt like I ever lost focus on Brooks & Dunn, but it is a good point in my life, especially if we are going to make new music. That’s a little deeper commitment in terms of creative focus and really getting your head in the game and seeing if we can come up with something good.

You’re also busy on the road.

The touring the last couple of years has gone really well. If that was something that was just kind of petering out or if we were just on autopilot, I’d feel different about it. But we’ve got a real big new audience out there that’s coming to these shows, and it’s really fun. Ronnie and I are at the best place we’ve ever been at in our career. I think he would agree to that. After all this time, we’ve really found a comfort zone between the two of us. There are those times when you’re touring and you’re doing all this stuff, and the countdown is a commitment. You must be present to win. You got to be there on Monday.

How do you feel the radio show helped keep you aware of other acts in country, especially newer ones?

One thing that, if anything, Ronnie and I lost when we were really in our heyday [is] you just don’t really know what everybody else is doing. You’re competitive, you kind of know who you’re butting heads with on tour and all that kind of stuff, but, honestly, all the young acts and everybody that’s coming up and bubbling under, you just sort of lose track all that. And so that part of it is great to stay in touch with who the up-and-comers are, and what music is doing and all that stuff. I enjoyed that part of it.

You also did weekly interviews with huge names, including Keith Urban, Chris Stapleton and Jason Aldean. Usually, you’re the one being interviewed. What did you learn about being on the other side?

I like to hear myself talk, so the hardest thing for me during interviews was always letting the person I’m interviewing talk because they’re generally talking about something in their career that I’m like, “Oh man, I know…” It’s so hard not to interject. When I started doing this for [Cumulus’s former name] ABC, they also owned ESPN, and sent me to interview school at their campus up in Connecticut. I went to interview school from eight to five for two weeks, just watching with a guy who was really good at this and analyzing interviews where [you can see] what’s good and what’s not.

How did hosting the countdown make you a better artist?

It really helped me stay in touch with my songwriter self, because for 10 years before I met Ronnie, that was all I was doing. I had a deal on Capitol for a minute, but really just trying to get a song cut was my day-to-day life. You do have to have a great sense of what’s in the water. People that listen to the same 15 songs on a mainstream country radio station, they say everything sounds the same: there’s a rhyme scheme, there’s a melody, there’s things that go on that get hot, and it’s always been that way. As a songwriter, you’ve got to keep your ears on that and your eyes on that, and realize, “Okay, this is going to move forward again.” Once there’s a hit, then everybody will gravitate to that. Everybody figures that formula out. Not everybody, but the people that are making money at it do.

You remake of “Believe” with Jelly Roll from Reboot 2 has just gone to country radio. Has counting down the hits every week lit a fire under you to have another No. 1?

It would be fun, but I’m pretty realistic about how that works. I think probably with some of the acts that we’re doing [Reboot 2] with, it could happen, I guess. But as far as Ronnie and I, we don’t have any honest expectations of having a No. 1 record, any more than probably George Strait or Garth or Reba or [whoever do]. We’re not necessarily making music now to try and fight our way up to No. 1. We’ve definitely had our time in that spotlight, and would it be great? Yeah, sure. But we’ve been doing this long enough to know how the world turns here, so that’s not something that we would have delusions of.

What are the odds on getting a Brooks & Dunn album of all new material in the next two years? The last album of all new songs was 2007’s Cowboy Town.

In the next two years? I’d say pretty good… I’m sure Ronnie’s got his own idea of how that could work. But I know he’s been writing a lot of songs. He’s sending me songs all the time. Ronnie’s fired up about getting into that. And I’m certainly not going to hold him back, and I will do my best to keep up and do my part.