Dustin Lynch’s Quarantine Project — and Hairstyle — Is Kind of a Homage to Dierks Bentley
Like everyone else, Dustin Lynch has had an unexpected amount of downtime to devote to new hobbies during the COVID-19 pandemic. What might come as a bigger surprise to fans, though, is that the hobbies Lynch picked aren't necessarily musical. In fact, they lean more towards adventurous — even thrill-seeking.
"I wanted to take the time to check off ... certifications, if you will," the singer tells Taste of Country Nights. "I got my endorsement to ride street bikes, because I just like the idea of being able to get on a big hog and ride into the farm, when the weather's nice. I haven't done it yet, but I got that endorsement."
Next up, Lynch has plans to take to the skies. "I recently have been working towards getting my pilot's license," he reveals.
He's not the only country star to put on a pilot's cap: Dierks Bentley obtained his pilot's license back in 1997, and since then, he's been known to fly himself home home on his private plane after concerts.
While Lynch doesn't have an aircraft of his own just yet, he's wondering if he might be able to score a hand-me-down from his fellow country star at some point.
"I'm hoping that Dierks Bentley just decides he doesn't need all of his and gives me one. But we'll see how that goes," Lynch jokes. "I do wanna surprise him at some point."
Joining Bentley as a country music pilot will be a full circle moment for Lynch, because not only is Bentley a musical mentor to him, but they also have a connection regarding flight lessons and Lynch's hometown of Tullahoma, Tenn.
"I moved to Nashville and really was excited to meet Dierks, and the first time I met him, we connected over my hometown of Tullahoma because he did a lot of practice flights into my home airport," the singer explains. "So I look forward to telling him that I'm flying a plane, and hopefully am one step closer to being a part of Dude Air."
Dude Air, of course, is the goofball fictional air line — "the sexiest airline in the sky" — that Bentley flew in the plot of his hit song, "Drunk on a Plane."
Pilot training isn't the only thing the two singers have in common these days. Fans who've gotten a good look at Bentley recently can attest to the fact that he's rocking almost enough of a quarantine mullet to rival his Hot Country Knights alter ego, Doug Douglason. Lynch admits that he recently let his hair get pretty shaggy, too, and might have kept it that way if it didn't get in the way of wearing his signature ball cap or cowboy hat.
"I got it so long I couldn't even keep a trucker hat on it. Because I've got a bird's nest on top of my head," he says. "It got so poofy that I couldn't even keep a ball cap on it anymore, so we trimmed a little bit off for a photoshoot, and then trimmed a little bit more off for the music video, and now I'm back in the kinda comfortable mode where I can wear my hats. And it not being in the way all the time."
Still, he says, he spent a fairly long period of time with the longer hairstyle.
"My 'corona cut' lasted almost a year," Lynch says, adding that at a certain point, his hair did reach full mullet status. "It was there. If I would've trimmed the 'business in the front' part, it was definitely a party in the back. No doubt."
Listen to Dustin Lynch's Interview With ToC Nights: