Jason Aldean remains the guy next door

Jason Aldean is known as country music's boundary buster. He rapped on his No. 1 single "Dirt Road Anthem." He enlisted pop princess Kelly Clarkson for his chart-topping duet "Don't You Wanna Stay." He insists that his bandmates crank their guitars to 10.

But Aldean is no outlier. He may be the closest thing Nashville has to a country everyman. He's like a lot of the guys in his audience -- hoop earrings, scraggly beard, tight cowboy shirt -- and he's open to all kinds of influences.

"I just grew up thinking that good music is good music," said Aldean, who performs Friday at Xcel Energy Center. "In our show we'd play like a Waylon [Jennings] song and then we'd turn around and play a Guns N' Roses song. That represents where I grew up and what I grew up listening to. Macon, Georgia, is a big melting pot of music. Country is always my favorite but I was never 'Country music is all there is and everything else sucked.' Guys like Eminem and Ludacris are awesome."

He may be open-minded, but Aldean's music has an edge and an attitude -- think Kid Rock's Southern lil' brother with more maturity and a better voice -- that set him apart from such current country superstars as Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban.

"I see fans reaching now for rougher, edgier and grittier kinds of things," said concert promoter Gary Marx. "People like Jason Aldean and Eric Church have attitudes. They're a little fresher and more aggressive, and people are responding."

But it's not a manufactured image for Aldean.

"I don't record songs that aren't me," said the plain-voiced country-rocker, who turns 34 this month. "What you see is what you get. I don't have the energy to go out and be something that I'm not."

"He seems so real," she said. "You feel he's lived the songs he sings. That small-town America thing of his really resonates. The girls really love him."

Pearson presented Aldean at the grandstand in 2009. Marx booked Aldean for Winstock in Winsted, Minn., in 2011, when the modest festival drew its biggest-ever crowd of 15,000. This August, Aldean will join Alabama and Toby Keith as headliners at the massive 30th annual We Fest in Detroit Lakes, Minn.

Meanwhile, Aldean is in the midst of his first arena headlining tour. This is the second leg, and he's retooled things for 2012.

"This tour is unlike any we've done," he said recently from a tour stop at Arkansas State University. "We decided to play basically in the round. It's been a really cool deal."

Country's best-seller of 2011

"It's crazy, man," he said. "It'll have that title 'album of the year' forever. It's a cool feeling."

In this challenging economy, Aldean knows how to give value. While most albums have 10 or 11 tunes, "My Kinda Party" has 15. While Urban and Chesney asked as much as $80 a ticket in 2011, his top price is $50.

"I remember having this conversation with [promoter] Live Nation when we signed with them," he said. "You can go out and charge 80 bucks for a ticket and have the place half full or you can charge 40 bucks a ticket and have the place completely full and you make the same amount of money. It's just common sense.

"And it's no big secret the economy is screwed up. Same with the album. Make them feel like they got their money's worth."

Otis is his favorite

At 21, he signed a songwriting contract and moved to Nashville. A few years later, an indie-label deal led to his self-titled 2005 debut, which yielded three hits, including a No. 1 single ("Why"). But his career really blew up with his third album, 2009's "Wide Open," with three No. 1 country singles including "Big Green Tractor."

"My Kinda Party," released 15 months ago, has produced two No. 1 singles and two No. 2's ("Tattoos on This Town" and the title track) while selling more than 2 million copies. It also led to three Grammy nominations, his first nods from that organization.

He's recorded a new album, but the title and release dates are still to be decided.

"It's going to be like the 'Party' record where there are a couple of surprises," said Aldean, who performed with rapper Ludacris on the CMT Awards and recorded a duet for pop veteran Lionel Richie's upcoming album. "But at the same time, the style of music I'm known for -- the aggressive country style -- is going to be there throughout the whole record."

Aldean wouldn't disclose the famous collaborators on his new album, except to say they're from Nashville.

"It shouldn't be too hard to find something that rhymes with Otis," Aldean said. "I'll have to get on that."