Despite their success, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn say they're still essentially the same as when they were struggling to get a break.
"You don't change," Ronnie tells The Tennessean. "People think you do. People started telling me that I changed the first hit record that we had. I swear on my grave that I didn't change; their perception of me changed. I don't care how much money I have, I'm always going to be going broke. That is just how I was raised. We didn't have money. I'm still going to be in a car and going, 'I shouldn't be in this car. I don't feel comfortable in this car.' It's in my genes."
Recently, Brooks & Dunn joined several others in a meeting to discuss issues regarding Wal-Mart and iTunes with Joe Galante, chairman of Sony BMG Nashville. "He said, 'It's been years since you walked into a Wal-Mart,' " Ronnie recalls. "That's not really the case. I'm thinking, 'I've been here longer than anybody for the most part, and I'm in there.' "
"You blink and 20 years of your life goes by," Kix said. "From the time I was 16, for 10 or 15 years solid, I was in bars. I can sit down and write a song sitting on a barstool right now and feel like it happened to me yesterday."
These coming-of-age years remain an important part of the duo's lives. "It doesn't matter what you're doing now, what you've accomplished or whatever," Kix says. "That is what you take a hold of. When you turn that corner, that will always be you. You'll look different, but that's where people grasp their personality and person. I'll be the same forever."