The Tennessean (April 6th 2014)

Co-hosts loosen up for return to ACMs

Bad reviews.

That's what Blake Shelton said he's hoping for Monday morning after tonight's 49th annual Academy of Country Music Awards. Shelton will co-host the show with Luke Bryan from the MGM Grand's Garden Arena in Las Vegas. 

And the way Shelton figures it, if critics hate it, that must mean that he and his fellow country star did something right.

"Bad reviews normally mean you had a really funny show," said Shelton, a coach on NBC reality TV competition "The Voice." "Every time I see something I think is hilarious, the reviews just trash it. Maybe if they hate it, we'll really hit our core and connect with people because that's usually how that stuff works out."

Bryan is just excited to get a second turn at co-hosting the show. Last year was Bryan's inaugural run, and he admitted he was stressed out and overwhelmed. This year already feels different to him.

"I think we're going to be looser this year," said Bryan, who also took home the top entertainer of the year prize in 2013.

More than a month before the awards show, Shelton already was cooking up ways to push Bryan and the program's boundaries even further.

The men, along with top nominees Miranda Lambert and Tim McGraw, gathered at a local studio in February to shoot some commercials for the awards show. Between takes they sat down to chat, and Shelton and Bryan couldn't resist exchanging good-natured jabs at each other. Shelton cracked jokes about Bryan's pale skin, and Bryan needled Shelton about his graying hair.

In between the men tossed around a few show ideas.

Here's how the conversation went:

Shelton: "I know somebody that you've got to roast this year."

Bryan: "Who?"

Shelton: "We can write them into the monologue. You have to take a shot."

Bryan: "Who?"

Shelton: "I'll do it if you don't want to."

Bryan: "We've got to get Bieber in there."

Shelton: "Nobody cares about him anymore. I'm talking about country singers."

Bryan: "Huh?"

Shelton: "I'll leave it alone. (Your publicist) is giving me the look of death. I'll handle this."

Even if Bryan went along with Shelton's plan to have him roast a fellow artist, R.A. Clark, the show's executive producer, isn't keen on the idea of the hosts picking on fellow artists. He said it's one thing to verbally poke each other on stage, but when audience members are targeted, they don't get the chance to respond.

"I'm a great believer in having fun, not making fun," Clark said. "The artists are sometimes a sensitive lot and don't want to be the center of attention, especially if you're being poked fun at."

That doesn't mean viewers are in for a vanilla evening. Last year, Bryan explained that "at the end of the day, you know the crowd was laughing and the show was a great show, and we represented country music great. We went outside of the box and told some funny jokes and roasted a couple of people, and we kept the people at home watching the show."

Shelton and Bryan plan to do the same thing this year, and from what Clark has seen, he said they've taken it up another notch. He said Bryan is more comfortable in his role, and the gig is now a 50/50 partnership.

"They let stuff fly as hosts, that's why I love them as hosts," Clark said. "I think they feed off of each other, which is fine. But Blake can get a little out there, and Luke will go with him. Sometimes Luke will help rein him in, and sometimes Luke is the bad boy. It's like I've got two high schoolers sometimes that I'm dealing with. People tune in to see, 'What are these crazy boys going to do?' It doesn't hurt that they're both at the top of their game right now. It makes us very, very current." 

Lambert, who is married to Shelton, said the show's hosts were the main thing she was anticipating, too. And even she didn't miss an opportunity to crack a joke.

"I love Luke Bryan," she quipped.

Lambert, who has won 15 awards from the country music organization, has the opportunity to up her total to 22 trophies if she wins all seven categories in which she's nominated. The "Automatic" singer is included in entertainer of the year and female vocalist of the year categories among others. She said she didn't even realize she was eligible for seven nominations because her last album, "Four the Record," "is almost 3 years old," but that she couldn't have been more excited when she found out.

"I still get butterflies when nominations are announced," she said. 

She's also just looking forward to the trip to Las Vegas.

"The ACMs are so fun," she said. "I think what's different about the ACMs from any of the other awards shows is that it is in Vegas and it already sets the tone for laid-back and fun and people kind of come there -- they know they're going to gamble and maybe cut a little more loose than they would at home." 

Clark said that was one of the main reasons he loves having the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.

"I like being the away game," he said. "It's basically spring break for country stars where they get to go to Vegas and take in shows and hang by the pool and drink and play poker. Yes, we all come to work, but I think the industry gets the chance to go somewhere and have some fun, and I think that translates on the screen. With us it's a party."

For Bryan it's more than that.

"As long as we're hosting it, we will never truly actually believe that we're hosting it," he said. "I remember being a kid and watching all my heroes being in a spot of hosting an awards show, and now I'm my own hero." 

Shelton sucked in a deep breath, and he and Bryan erupted in laughter.

"That will be the headline," Shelton said. "Luke Bryan is his own hero."