Nov. 27--Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Richard Sterban, bass vocalist with country/pop quartet The Oak Ridge Boys, about the key to the group's longevity, stepping outside their comfort zone and William Golden's beard.

CP: Having been together for 40 years, how do you manage to keep up your interest in the music from night to night?

RS: You know, I think that it's a combination of reasons. Absolutely, the No. 1 reason is that, after all these years, we still love what we do, and we're excited about what we do. We look forward to getting on stage every night. There's a spark in all of us that make us want to do this. We love to harmonize together, and we love singing together. Even after all these years, it's still what we look forward to doing. It's what we do. We are the Oak Ridge Boys. There's really no plan on the part of any of us to retire any time soon because we're still having fun doing this. People are still spending their hard-earned money to come out and see us and buy our records. As long as that continues, you'll see us out there doing this.

Another reason is that I also think we have a way of reinventing ourselves from time to time. We've done that recently. This year, we came out with a whole new project called "The Boys Are Back." It's reenergized us. It's propelled some new excitement into our group and what we do. We worked with a young producer, David Cobb. He's 32 years old, which compared to us, is young. We were willing to allow him to take us down some roads that we haven't traveled before and roads that, realistically we might not have gone down on our own without someone prodding us and leading us in a different direction.

We found it very exciting and stimulating.

Shooter Jennings had a lot to do with this project becoming a reality. He called us a couple of years ago and wanted us to sing on a project with him called "The Wolf" on a song called "Slow Train." We jumped at the chance to sing with Shooter. We remember him when he was a little boy. We were good friends with his daddy, Waylon, and we remembered Waylon bringing Shooter by the studio when we were recording and hanging out. When he called, we were like, "We'd love to sing with Shooter."

It was ironic because we went to the studio on Music Row, and as we got reacquainted with Shooter, and it was the very same studio where Waylon recorded and some of the original outlaw music was recorded in country music. We got to know Shooter again, but more importantly, we met David Cobb, his young producer, and hit it off with him. We started a dialogue and were able to work it out.

CP: What was the experience like purposefully putting yourselves out on a musical limb with that record?

RS: I think what really excited us about working with David Cobb was that, a couple of months later, Shooter had a show in Nashville at a club called City Hall. We went to the club, and it was packed with kids, certainly a younger audience than we normally draw. We did "Slow Train," and the kids went crazy. Then, after we did "Slow Train," we did "Elvira" with Shooter and his band. The kids went crazy again. They knew every word and were dancing and singing "Oom papa mow mow" with me.

That night, we realized, "We can record some music that would possible expand our audience and possibly allow us to appeal to a younger audience." That night was when the idea was born to do a project with David Cobb. We were able to work it out with the record label, and a couple months later, we were in the same studio working with David.

He took us down some different roads. I remember the first song he sent us that he wanted us to record. In the past, we had a lot to do with the material we recorded. Duane Allen, our lead singer, was strongly involved in the area of selecting songs and material. We felt that, for this project, we would put ourselves in the hands of this young producer and let him choose the material and take us down what roads he wanted us to go down. We felt it was time for a chance.

The first song he sent us was "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes. We all played that on our computers. He e-mailed us while we were on the road, so we all got our laptops out and listened to it. We all realized, at that point, that it was going to be a different project for us because we would never have thought about recording "Seven Nation Army." He said, "Trust me, fellows.