Kix Brooks savoring Vegas, wine and some mighty fine grillin’

You can’t argue with the facts. Brooks and Dunn remain the best-selling duo in country music history, with 30 million albums sold and 23 No. 1 hits to their credit.

But that’s just part of the story of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, whose 20-year career together boasts such hits as “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” “My Maria,” “She Used to Be Mine” “Red Dirt Road” and “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone.” Though they don’t generally perform as a duo anymore, they can be found in residence at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas as part of a trio — as in “Reba, Brooks & Dunn: Together in Las Vegas” (scheduled dates can be found at caesarspalace.com).

Chicago-area country music fans are in for a treat when Brooks & Dunn get together for a rare road gig June 18 and 19 as part of the Country LakeShake Festival (the fest runs June 17-19 and features Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Sam Hunt and Travis Tritt, among others).

At 60, Brooks is busy celebrating all that life has to offer, whether it’s music, wine or cooking. Brooks, who also owns the acclaimed Arrington Vineyards just outside of Nashville, is about to release his first cookbook, “Cookin’ It With Kix: The Art of Celebrating the Fun of Outdoor Cooking” (due Aug. 30, Thomas Nelson Books). No surprise there: Brooks also hosts “Steak Out with Kix Brooks” on the Cooking Channel (airing at 10 a.m. Thursdays), which finds the singer visiting steakhouses across America, garnering recipes and tips from the best beef purveyors in the country (a recent episode found him at Chicago Cut).

Brooks recently chatted about his very busy life.

Q. How did the Las Vegas gig come about?

A. The three of us have been friends forever. Me, Ronnie and Reba has were at dinner one night and talking about some of the tours we’ve been on together, laughing about so much stuff, and she said why don’t we go on tour like that again? And I wasn’t really interested in a big tour again. The last time we toured we had 21 trucks on the road for the three of us. And all of us had stuff going on and my schedule is just jammed. Once Ronnie and me came off the road, I was busy making wine and my solo music. But I said, if Vegas cared and we could do a few weeks here and there, I’d love to play all those songs again. So our manager made a few calls and Caesars made us an offer that made our eyes roll back in our heads. And here we are. And it’s been a ton of fun. We play Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights. I get to play some golf. And we don’t worry about show dates in the next city. And it’s the greatest theater I’ve ever played in; it can make an 11-piece hillbilly band look and sound great.

Q. How different is it to play all your gigs in one place as opposed to being out on the road?

A. It’s just so much more relaxed. There’s a certain panic zone when you’re spending all day long setting stuff up and about 85 percent of it works come showtime. When you’re touring with that much junk it’s just not all gonna get plugged in (laughs). You have different local crews every day. You’re hanging speakers from different places. Nothing ever sounds the same. You make the best of it. You also come off stage some nights thinking, I wish this would have worked better. Or that would have worked better. In Vegas, we’ve taken lots of care with everything from the sounds to the lights to the video. We have some big production moments. You spend months working on it to give fans that moment where they go, “Holy cow!” And it all works beautifully night after night.

Q. How did it feel performing on stage with Ronnie again, on that opening night at the Colosseum? You guys went through some rough patches before parted ways.

A. It’s totally just like old times. It was like we had played together last week. We bounced right back into it. We went from 20 years of touring, from doing as many as 200 shows a year. We’ve done several thousand shows together. We’ve got our thing and it ain’t going away. Ronnie and I never raised our voices to each other. We knew when to get away from each other, especially if we were in a place where we were not agreeing with each other. We took four or five years off from each other. The creative process is stressful when you’re not seeing things the same way. Ronnie and I didn’t have any trouble going on vacation together. Six months after we came off tour we were in Bora Bora on vacation with Reba! Having fun and partying. It was as easy as it ever was. We just needed a break from creating together. We wanted to be good. We just didn’t want to butt heads.

Q. How’s the wine business going?

A. It’s flowing and going! [Laughs] I think I’m most proud of this experience we’ve created at the winery. I never wanted to butt heads with Napa [Valley], though we’ve won competitions up against them. We’ll do over 20,000 cases a year and 90 percent is out the door. I can’t take any credit for the winemaking, but we don’t make anything I don’t like. There’s no wine experience in middle Tennessee like ours, and there’s many great wine cellars here!

Q. What made you decide to write a cookbook?

A. I thought of building a steakhouse and I realized I knew so little about it. I had to stop and take a step back. So I put together this TV show concept about going to all the great steakhouses in America and learning from the best and sharing recipes and stories with viewers. I know a lot about grilling. I was born in Louisiana! If you live down there, you grill! If you grow up down there you learn how to boil water, get some grease hot, and run a barbecue pit! We grill everything. All kinds of meats, fish, vegetables. The book is really about celebrating cooking. How to have fun cooking. It’s not some foodie thing and elaborate stuff that chefs do. It’s all about grillin’ and tailgating!

Q. With the 4th of July just around the corner, what are three steak grilling tips you can share?

A. Don’t just bring home a steak and cook it. Marinate it. Put it in a drawer in your refrigerator and leave it there for two days. Let it age and let the enzymes break down. It will be more tender. The other thing is never take it out of the fridge and cook it. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes till it comes to room temperature. And last, when you take it off the grill, let it rest. It’s like letting your wine breathe. Give it five minutes and it will be more juicy.

NOTE: CMT will be filming a two-hour special from Country LakeShake over the course of the three-day fest, featuring exclusive performances and behind-the-scenes footage.