Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean have one more show left on their Double Down Tour. With three already behind them, the co-headlining tour is an extension of their 20-plus year friendship.
“We’ve come a long way,” Bryan tells Entertainment Tonight. “What’s really amazing is he and I grew up in Georgia playing a lot of the same college bars. So to be able to say that we can come to San Diego, and play the home of the Padres, it’s surreal. He was already a headliner when I was opening up for him.”
Bryan and Aldean are good friends, on and off stage. Although they both might compete for spots on the charts, they remain each other’s biggest fans.
“I think the biggest thing has been, we’ve always kind of been champions for each other,” Aldean says. “I always wanted to see him do well, and vice versa. It was never any kind of rivalry, any kind of weird thing like that. It was just always wanting to see — obviously, you go to an awards show, you want to win certain things. But if you don’t, and he wins, it’s great. And I think it’s always kind of been like that for me and for him as well.’
How Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean Decided to Launch The Double Down Tour
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Not only are Bryan and Aldean good friends, but they are also two of the biggest hitmakers in country music right now. Finding a way to tour together wasn’t easy, but to see it come to fruition is a dream come true.
“I think it’s something we had kind of been talking about for a while,” Aldean says. “The last few years, we had talked about, man, it would be great for us to get to go do that again. Go tour together again. It’s kind of tough when you got two people that are used to headlining shows. How do you do that? ‘Cause it’s not fair for him to come and open for me.
“So we finally kind of came up with a way to do it where it’s just different, and we’re out there together, and it’s more fun that way for us,’ he adds. “We’ve been talking about it probably for the last four or five years, and were finally able to pull it off for a few shows this year.”
Coincidentally, both men have 32 No. 1 singles, a rare feat for any artist. But Bryan and Aldean see their success less as competition, and more as a shared, common goal.
“I think he’s ahead of me now,” Bryan says. “But we’ve always come together for one common thing, and that’s to try to make great music. And anytime I’ve played him a song of mine, he’s always told me what he thought, and vice versa. We always had fun in the industry. And our love for it, just getting to be on stage, we learned that love back when we were playing college bars, and we still get to do it.”
Bryan and Aldean’s final show on their Double Down Tour takes place on December 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.