Photo courtesy Kristin Barlow

Luke Bryan

Some of country music's biggest names - Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Sugarland, Miranda Lambert, Jason Aldean, Jamey Johnson - have headlined CMT On Tour, which stops at the Salem Civic Center on Friday.

Now it is Luke Bryan's turn.

The Georgia-born singer/songwriter, whose latest record, "Tailgates & Tanlines," crossed over for weeks on the Billboard pop chart, was second on the bill last year to his hunting buddy Aldean, and he appeared poised during that show to take the next step up. "Tailgates ..." and the single "Country Girl (Shake It For Me)" have provided the ladder.

"Well, you dream of it, and you go make records that you believe in and you kind of release them out into the public," Bryan said of his hits. "And the fans and what goes on kind of dictates your future. So when you make an album and it does well, you just feel so blessed and so thankful that you've got fans that are buying it and supporting it.

"Being part of the CMT tour and having toured with Aldean, and there's a lot of factors that come in [to make] this moment and this spot in my career, where I can start branching out and headlining. At the end of the day, you're just really, really thankful that all of this is going on, and never try to take a second of it for granted."

From peanuts to hits

Bryan grew up on Leesburg, Ga., the son of a peanut farmer. Bryan started working on the farm at 16, "doing everything you can imagine that goes on on a farm," he said.

"A lot of hard work - not near as hard a work as my dad's probably done through the years. I know I want to keep playing music and not have to go back to that right now."

The lessons from his father, "one of the hardest working people I've ever seen," stuck with him, Bryan said.

"He kind of taught me that if you're ever going to be anything, you've got to get out there and earn it," he said. "It's kind of been my whole process the whole time since I've been in Nashville: Get out there and don't wait on good things to happen; go make them happen."

By the time Bryan hit the Salem Civic Center with Aldean in February 2010, plenty of good things had happened.

Two singles from his debut CD, "I'll Stay Me," had gone to the top 10 in the Billboard country chart. That night, he performed "Do I," his first No. 1 single from sophomore effort "Doin' My Thing." Two other songs he played that night, "Someone Else Calling You Baby" and "Rain Is A Good Thing," also topped that chart. Bryan has co-written most of his hits.

But like Aldean and many from the emerging pack of country performers, much of his music leaned toward rock and pop. And his cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" got the full-on heavy metal treatment, with Bryan altering his twang to sound like Metallica's James Hetfield.

"I think it's just a fun cover, and I think it's something people aren't expecting. I think you want people to leave a show going, wow, I can't believe he just did that, or I just saw that.

"We did it one night kind of on the fly, cutting up, and we kind of went back and realized it was pretty cool, so we just kept doing it, and nobody's told us to stop yet."

Yes, it's a country show, but these days, performers don't have to limit themselves where genre is concerned, he said.

"We're all from an age where nobody's just sitting in the woods anymore, just listening to strictly country," he said. "I think if you're a music fan, you're hearing all forms of music coming at you, so definitely you can get away with a lot more these days and have more creative control in your show. And people aren't going to judge you for it."

Solid opening acts

Bryan's opening set got the nearly 6,000 people in a sold-out Salem Civic Center fired up for Aldean (who last month performed in front of about 7,500 at Roanoke Civic Center). That's the ideal opening set, and Bryan said that his CMT Tour openers, Lee Brice and Josh Thompson, are up to the task.

Brice had Billboard's No. 1 country song of 2010 with the title track from his debut album, "Love Like Crazy" (Curb Records). Brice has written hits for such performers as Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw. And he co-wrote his new single, "A Woman Like You," which has moved into the country top 50 in its second week on the radio.

Thompson's debut album, "Way Out Here," debuted in the Billboard country albums top 10 and featured three hit singles, including the title cut, a top 5 single. Thompson has written songs that Aldean and Brad Paisley have recorded.

"Aw man, they're awesome," he said. "They're out there working hard and writing great songs. ... They're great, in-your-face type performers, and that's exactly what I want kicking off the tour - somebody that gets out there and gets the crowd going and doesn't pull any punches."

When we spoke by phone on Oct. 14 with Bryan, the three had already played eight shows. Bryan, speaking before a Greensboro, N.C., show, was elated with how it had been going.

"It's been the most gratifying experience of my life, to have 3,000 or 4,000 people in a room, and everybody knows every song you perform," he said. "So we're living it up out here, and the shows have been great, and it's awesome."