If there’s one thing Kenny Chesney understands, it’s how and where people live. Even when he was digging deeper for his highly anticipated Lucky Old Sun, which will be released October 14, Chesney wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to sing what everybody thinks, but most people wouldn’t dare say: “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven (They Just Don’t Wanna Go Today).”

And how on the pulse is the man who’s played to in excess of a million fans each of the past 7 summers? Just 6 weeks after add date, “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven” is at #1 on the Country Singles charts.

“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t wanna go to heaven,” laughs the man who spent 25% of last year at the top of the country charts with “Never Wanted Nothing More,” “Better As A Memory” and the CMA Single and Video of the Year nominee “Don’t Blink” of his latest chart-topper. “But just because you want to go to heaven, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to stop living. Heck, I think it almost makes you wanna live that much more…”

The Calypso-drenched song of Sunday morning sermons and the love of Saturday night, kicks off the follow-up to Chesney’s self-penned platinum-plus Be As You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair. But where Chesney characterizes Be As You Are as “more a map to the places I drink beer in the islands,” Lucky Old Sun is “more a picture of who I am right now, and where I’ve been over the last few years.”

Beyond the percolating hit single, there is the Tin Pan Ally classic title track – featuring Willie Nelson, a duet with songwriter Mac McAnally on the tender “Down the Road” and several thoughtful Chesney originals including “Nowhere To Go, Nowhere To Be,” “Boats,” “Way Down Here” and “Spirit of a Storm.”

“I think real life is a lot of things,” says the 4-straight and reigning Academy of Country Music and 3-time and current Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year, who is also this year’s leading CMA Awards nominee with 7 nods. “Yes, you want to have fun… you wanna have a good time with your friends… and forget about your troubles. I think that’s what (“Heaven”) is about.

“But there’s also a time when you have to deal with the storms that are blowing in… No life is completely carefree, and this is an album about that. Both facing the things that are hard, and figuring out how to still have some laughter or happiness in the worst of it. Because in the end, it is up to you.”

With morning practice being rained out, the pressure was on as the sky cleared. As New Orleans Saints’ Coach Sean Peyton told the assembled players at today’s practice, “Last year, as a rookie, we overlooked some things. But as a second year player, we really needed to see some things…”

For Kenny Chesney, the only artist to sell over a million concert tickets each of the past seven summers, that meant digging in and going deep. With running back Reggie Bush and tight end Jeremy Shockey both on the field, the Luttrell, Tennessean ran 10 or 12 plays with the Saints first team, again catching passes from quarterback Drew Brees.

Executing a successful play called “a post” and also a wide receiver reverse that he would’ve scored on — except “(defensive end) Will Smith had me,” this year’s practice at Millsap’s College was indeed a full practice rather than last year’s walk through. Like last year, though, Chesney closed out the day catching punts.

“As good a shape as you think you’re in – and people know I work out pretty hard,” Chesney said after, “you get out here and you know what in shape really means. These guys are in unbelievable condition, and just keeping up makes me feel like I’m hitting my marks.”

Classically understated, Chesney fails to mention catching a 45 yard punt. Not only did he make the play, but because he managed to catch it, Coach Peyton gave the players next Sunday off. In assessing the unlikely draftee’s improvement and performance, the Coach opined, “We really did need to see some things. We saw it today. Chesney is part of our team.”

Having played to 46,871 last weekend at Detroit’s Ford Field, 57, 394 at Boston’s Gillette Stadium and 49.232 at Nashville’s LP Field – as well as helping Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews have a first day sell-out for the 23rd Farm Aid Concert, Chesney knows how to hit hard on the grid iron. It stands to follow, suiting up and taking practice with the New Orleans Saints is just taking things a little more literally.

“When you grow up in East Tennessee, like a lot of places, sports is everything,” Chesney says. “I quit growing too young to ever think about getting to have a shot at playing even in college, so this is about the most fun I can have. It’s like having a lot of these players come out and sing with us during ‘Back Where I Come From’… sometimes just having the moment to feel what it’s like to do it is the greatest feeling in the world.”

With “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven,” the lead single from his highly introspective Lucky Old Sun, in play – and landing at #22 in its first week on Billboard’s Country Singles chart, Chesney is ready to rock long after his Corona Extra sponsored Poets & Pirates Tour wraps up. With some of the most personal – and in places fun – music of his career about to come out, these are the moments Kenny Chesney lives for.

With 25% of 2007 spent at #1, it should come as no surprise that Kenny Chesney’s songs have come to define country music in the 21st century. What is slightly staggering is that with “Better As A Memory” breaking into the Top 10 on the Billboard/R&R Country Chart, it marks his 24th straight Top 10, making it the longest consecutive run of Top 10 hits this millennium.

“I just know how psyched I was when I got that first Top 10 hit,” Chesney laughs. “Beyond that, you don’t think about how many… you just hope there’s gonna be another one. I’ve been very lucky: some of the best writers in the whole world let me record some of their very best songs and I’ve written a few that hit people as well… but the record, wow, that’s pretty cool.”

For Chesney – the three consecutive and reigning Academy of Country Music and three time and reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year – records are becoming a matter of course over the last few years. Not only has he been the only artist to sell over a million tickets each of the past 6 years, but that stat makes him the biggest ticket seller of this century as well.

Beyond his own 14 weeks at weeks at #1 – 6 weeks with “Never Wanted Nothing More,” 5 with ACM Song, Single and Video of the Year nominee “Don’t Blink” and 3 with his self-penned “Beer In Mexico” – Chesney logged another 3 weeks at #1 as the co-writer of Rascal Flatts’ 3 week chart-topper “Take Me There.” With the ACM Vocal Event of the Year “Shiftwork” duet with George Strait spending multiple weeks at #2 and the current “Better As A Memory,” the platinum-plus Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates is practically a greatest hits package on its own.

“You know, the radio was everything for us growing up,” concedes the leading ACM nominee. “Now people have I-Pods, MP-3s, all kinds of stuff beyond their car radio. But I still think that it’s riding around with your friends – or driving to be somewhere you really wanna be – that songs become a big part of your life. So to hear that I’ve got the longest run of Top 10s since 2000, well, that means my songs have been a big part of a lot of people’s lives. Is there anything better for someone who does what I do? I mean, I look at the songs of Springsteen, Mellencamp, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Van Halen… what they meant to me!?! That’s what I hope this music means to other people.

With Chesney’s Poets & Pirates 2008 Tour — sponsored by Corona Extra – again being the only country tour to tackle NFL Stadiums, the man who played to close to 43,000 in Baltimore last weekend is on the road and rocking the fans like only he knows how. In spite of a pretty serious injury in Columbia, SC – where the hard-charging entertainer went on to play his entire 100+ show before having his boot cut off – Chesney is committed to remaining the experience that makes summer official again this year.

“To me, summer is all about having fun, forgetting your problems, being with your friends. That’s what being on the road with my guys is like for me – and judging by the tailgate parties, the stories we hear in meet & greet and the faces I see in the crowd, it’s like that for the fans, too. Pretty cool.”