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Brad Paisley

Brad Paisley dives in for Shark Week: Singer talks being 'thrown into the fire,' his tour

Erin Jensen
USA TODAY

In Brad Paisley's "I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)" – in which he picks casting a line over his girlfriend – the country singer celebrates: "Oh, lookie there. I've got a bite."

But when preparing to plunge into cerulean Bahamian waters with a swarm of Caribbean reef sharks, a bite is exactly what Paisley tried to avoid. 

"First dive, it was like (being) thrown into the fire. We pulled up and here's 8-foot sharks going around this boat," he says in an interview. "Every instinct in your body says, 'This is not the time to get in.’”

The Grammy winner's descents off the Nassau coast were captured for “Brad Paisley’s Shark Country” (Tuesday, 9 EDT/PDT), part of Discovery's flagship Shark Week that began circling Sunday. This year's lineup for the annual fêting of the oceanic overlord animal also features comedian Tiffany Haddish; actors William Shatner and Noah Schnapp; "Sharknado" stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid; and cast members from MTV's early aughts stunt show "Jackass."    

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Paisley, 48, partners with marine scientist Austin Gallagher for the hourlong special. The experiment, shot May 31 through June 3, monitors the effects that sounds (of sperm whales or a spear gun, for example) and song have on sharks. The artist says he and sons William, 14, and Jasper, 12, are Shark Week enthusiasts. "It's your week of the summer where you don't have to have a babysitter," he says. "They'll watch it the whole time." 

The "City of Music" singer says his kids were excited for his adventure "and would love to have done it" themselves. Paisley jokes his wife, "Father of the Bride" actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, "made sure the insurance policy was up to date and was like, ‘Go for it!’"

Stand-up and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star JB Smoove joined Paisley for the experiment, the highlight of the trip. Paisley says the two were constantly laughing, as Smoove is even "crazier in real life" than his "Curb" character, Leon Black.

"He has no off switch. He has one gear, and the gear is overdrive," says Paisley. "It is idea after idea... He's really a blast to be around. And I even told him, ‘We are totally blood brothers now,’ having been through two days of this." 

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Comedian JB Smoove joins Brad Paisley for the underwater adventure.

For his first dive for "Shark Country,” Paisley suited up and took the plunge with rescue divers and crew members. "We all got in, and they're like, 'It's gonna be OK,'" Paisley remembers. "I'm like, ‘You promise?’ They're like, ‘yeah, you’re gonna be OK.'"

Submerged, Paisley felt a peace quickly wash over him as the sharks drew near. "They're coming right up like, 'Hey, what's going on?' Just one foot away, cruising by me – fin brushing my neck as they go by," he says. After spending time with the reef sharks, Paisley says he "felt no different than if you had taken me to a kennel to see a bunch of dogs." But he was warned against petting these creatures. "And I listened to what they said on that, 'cause I'm a guitar player and that wouldn't be a good idea," he jokes. 

Still, Paisley had close encounters with the animals; one swam right overhead. The shark "rubbed his belly on my head as he swam off," he remembers, "not in any sort of aggressive way. Just sort of like, ‘I got an itch; help me out.’" 

Paisley enjoyed the experience so much, he's plotting his next date with the sharks. "There'll be no way you can keep me away from this," he says. "At the end of the show, to JB, I'm like, 'All right, next year, what are we doing, great whites?'"

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JB Smoove and Brad Paisley perform underwater to see how sharks respond to the music.

From strumming his guitar for sharks to playing for crowds ready to shed the isolation and deprivation of a pandemic, Paisley kicked off a concert tour on June 5 in Panama City Beach, Florida, playing at the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam. He'll perform throughout the country through Oct. 9. 

After more than a year of a global pandemic, Paisley says touring feels especially incredible. "It feels great when you launch a tour anyway, but when you have it taken away, we all learned how important this is to our lives, including the fans, but I think especially the musicians." Paisley says he, along with his band and crew, are "not going to take this for granted."

He says he's "never had a more therapeutic experience onstage" than when performing a pair of acoustic shows he played late last month at the Wynn Las Vegas.

The pandemic "changed every story I tell about every song," he says. "Everything changed – whether that's ‘Letter to Me,’ talking about what I would tell myself now, or a song called ‘Last Time for Everything,’ which is about (how) you never know when you're not going to get to do something again."

To those attending one of his shows, Paisley promises, "We're going to give everything we've got."

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