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Blake Shelton on New Restaurant and Happy Life with Gwen Stefani: 'It Seems Too Good to Be True'
Music, love and vodka — Blake Shelton has it all.
The most-crowned judge on The Voice, recent CMT Video of the Year winner and boyfriend of Gwen Stefani has added “restaurateur” to his long list of titles. Still, he’s a much better judge of music than he is of cocktails.
“I have one drink, and it’s Sprite Zero and vodka,” he tells PEOPLE with a laugh while taste testing cocktails at Ole Red Nashville, his newest restaurant, live music venue and retail space, named after his first hit “Ol’ Red.”
In this week’s issue, the country star, 42, opens up about the venture and how he couldn’t be happier — or busier.
Thinking back, “‘Ol’ Red‘ was handed to me within the first week that I moved to Nashville,” Shelton says of recording his breakout 2001 song that catapulted his career. “Twenty-four years later, it seems too good to be true how it’s all come back around.”
The first Ole Red restaurant opened in Shelton’s hometown of Tishomingo, Oklahoma. In service since September 2017, the restaurant is “doing really good,” Shelton says.
When he was ready for round two, Shelton smartly set his sights on the Country Music Capital of the World, but it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for him to set up shop in Nashville.
Two years ago, when he and Stefani went to check out the vacant former bank building that would become the next Ole Red location, there were some holes in the plan — literally.
“We went upstairs to the rooftop and Gwen’s heel goes through the roof,” Shelton recalls of the venue’s rough beginnings. “And I’m trying to get her leg back out and free and I’m like, ‘What the f— is that?'”
Now, the place is buzzing with live music and guests sipping on the “Tishomingo Sunset” cocktail or enjoying “Cumberland Punch,” named after the Cumberland River running through Music City’s backyard.
Shelton, who’s already enlisted a slew of his famous friends to perform at the venue, wants to make sure that the Nashville music scene continues to thrive. “It’s funny how it’s taken all this time for us artists to figure out we ought to stake a claim downtown and remind people this is still a music-based community,” Shelton says.
Blake Shelton's Friends Were Shocked He Snagged Gwen Stefani: 'They Were Like, "What in the Hell?"'
Blake Shelton really can’t complain.
On June 6, the country crooner celebrated the opening of his new restaurant and bar Ole Red Nashville, which joins his existing location in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. And though girlfriend Gwen Stefani wasn’t able to make it out to the festivities, she’s yet another reason he’s pinching himself these days.
“I wouldn’t change one thing about my life right now,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
“I’m happy,” he adds. “Sometimes happiness can seem like fleeting moments, but this one has been staying in the same lane for a long time. It’s just amazing.”
When the Voice coach — who’s packed six wins in the 14 seasons he’s been on NBC’s hit singing competition show — isn’t guiding hopeful artists or selling out arenas with his Country Music Freaks tour, he spends his time being blissfully in love with former Voice coach Gwen Stefani, 48.
“I would just like to ride this wave till I die,” he says. “The personal side of my life has been chaotic at times over the last few years, but it’s kinda settled down now and just feels good.”
Though the “God Gave Me You” singer is the first one to admit he and the glam pop singer are an “interesting” couple, he says somehow they just “make sense.”
“When we first started seeing each other, friends of mine would be like, ‘What the hell is that all about?'” he says. “But if you ever had a chance to be around us together, it does make sense.”
“People do like us together,” Shelton, who supported his love Tuesday night at her Vegas residency kickoff, adds.
Though the pair spends most of their time in Los Angeles, they make it a point to jet off to his waterfront home in Oklahoma with Stefani’s three sons, Kingston, 12, Zuma, 9, and Apollo, 4.
“We love to go out on the lake,” says Shelton. “My family, Gwen and her family, we all get together and go out and float around. The kids swim and tube and all that stuff. We have a blast.”
And while Shelton and Stefani “appreciate” the support and the time that fans have invested in their relationship, wedding rumors that have been swirling from the start are laughable at this moment.
“Don’t you read the tabloids? Gwen and I already have a few kids,” he jokes. “We’ve been married and divorced and married again a couple of times. We were married before we ever even met each other!”