Toby Keith returns to music

Bar owner, Ford truck pitchman, movie star wannabe.

Despite wearing many hats, Toby Keith still rides the horse that brought him: The music.

Between openings this year of several Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill, he is putting out a new album Tuesday called "Bullets in the Gun." It's got some bite to go with the Big Dog's usual bark: a tough title track, a tender love song or two and a couple of novelties that have "hilarious video and hit song" written all over them.

The gangsta-evoking title cut makes Keith sound like the all-American angry cowboy.

"I don't have too much to be angry about anymore," the country superstar said recently in the VIP Room of his bar in St. Louis Park. "I don't think the song was conceived from an angry point. I think it's where the song ideas led us to go. I hadn't done a western song in years."

"Bullets" is a modern-day western about a bad boy with a quick trigger riding his motorcycle around the country looking for love, or something like it. He picks up a stripper in an Arizona saloon, whose owner then roughs her up (for getting friendly for free). She robs her boss with the bad boy's gun, and the couple flee to Mexico like Bonnie and Clyde.

Already receiving airplay on K102, "Bullets in the Gun" sounds as if it could be Keith's biggest kick-butt single since 2002's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)." That pro-troops single got Keith painted as a conservative, but it turned out he was a lifelong Democrat -- until he recently registered as an independent.

On "Get Out of My Car," the male protagonist gets caught in the back seat with his pants off after his gal exits his car. Talk about a video waiting to happen.

Keith already has released a riotous video of his current single, "Trailerhood," featuring 40 people who actually live in the trailer park where it was shot.

Does he think visually when he writes these songs?

"Oh, yeah. I see a story unfolding," he said. "In the 'Trailerhood' world, it's about a little moonshine, a little homemade wine, a little beer, Dallas Cowboys football. Oops, tornado's coming and I live in a trailer house. In the end, it never works out for the loser. You've got to make fun of yourself."

Where does his sense of humor come from?

Why no Twin Cities concert

At 49, Keith has cut back his concert schedule to about 60 a year, mostly in amphitheaters. Since the Twin Cities area doesn't have an amphitheater, he hasn't performed here since a State Fair gig in 2008, though he's been a regular at Minnesota and Wisconsin country festivals.

Keith is using other vehicles to promote his new album. On Oct. 25, he will return to pro wrestling on "WWE Raw," broadcast live on the USA Network from Green Bay, Wis. He first entered the ring in 2002 on TNA Wrestling. While he was singing "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," wrestler Jeff Jarrett interrupted him, and Keith responded by bodyslamming Jarrett.

This time around, will the burly, 6-foot-4 Keith get involved physically? "Just verbally," he said. "I might take my gun with me." He chuckled like a good ol' boy.