thomas rhett Archives - off the record

LIVE REVIEW: Thomas Rhett @ C2C Festival, London

Imogen Marshall — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Demonstrating just why he is deserving of headliner status – and frankly leaving us questioning why he has not won the CMA Entertainer of the Year yet, Thomas Rhett delivered an energetic and mesmerising performance at the O2 London for C2C Festival.

Credit: Luke Dyson

Thomas Rhett is a born entertainer. It is perhaps easy to forget just how many hits he has delivered over the course of his career, given his humility and the way he carries himself (even recording a message for his children live on stage at the arena), yet at the O2 in London during C2C Festival, Rhett showcased just why he is so deserving of his headliner status. From his opener, ‘Craving You,’ Rhett captivated his audience, holding his fans in the palm of his hand for the entirety of his set until the last bars of ‘What’s Your Country Song?’ The true mark of his talent – his ability to energise the crowds in the larger numbers (T-Shirt / Ain’t Nothing That A Beer Can’t Fix), yet seemingly shrink the crowd and provide an intimate moments on quieter songs (Slow Down Summer / Marry Me.

Across the course of 90 minutes, Rhett performed hit after hit, rounding out his sound with some stronger guitar work – from steel to acoustic – and some quieter piano moments. Rhett hardly missed a beat as he pivoted between emotions, moods and sounds, thriving on the responsive audience that were hanging on his every word. Easy highlights were provided on his huge cover of ‘She Had Me at Heads Carolina,’ that he co-wrote with Ashley Gorley (recorded by Cole Swindell), and his pivots into some of his earlier hits, including ‘Crash and Burn’ and ‘Get Me Some of That,’ before an acoustic performance of a new track ‘Feeling Country,’ delivered with ease. Without a doubt though, one of the most emotional moments was on his love letter to his wife Lauren – ‘Angels,’ a gorgeously, authentic and powerful moment. Mid-set, Thomas Rhett was joined by friend Niall Horan for a rendition of his track ‘Slow Hands,’ where (apologies to any 1D fans), Rhett dominated the stage and Horan’s star paled in comparison.

Friday showed the extent to which Thomas Rhett is revered by his UK fans, turning the O2 into a honkytonk dive bar party. What an astonishing show and credit to the festival for knowing their fanbase.

Set List

Craving You

Look What God Gave Her

Half of Me

Life Changes

Slow Down Summer

Make Me Wanna

Marry Me

Get Me Some of That / It Goes Like This

Vacation

Paradise

Slow Hands (with Niall Horan)

Beer Can’t Fix

Angels

She Had Me at Heads Carolina

Die a Happy Man

Feelin’ Country

Country Again

Unforgettable

Sixteen

Crash and Burn

T Shirt

What’s Your Country Song

The post LIVE REVIEW: Thomas Rhett @ C2C Festival, London appeared first on off the record.

Celebrate 10 Years of C2C Festival in 2023

Imogen Marshall — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 18:00:00 +0000

Europe’s most hotly anticipated country music festival – C2C Festival – is celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary in 2023 with a star-studded line-up – more details below.

Celebrating a decade of bringing country to the masses, C2C, Europe’s biggest country music festival, is back for 2023, returning with another incredible line up to The O2 London, 3Arena Dublin and The OVO Hydro, Glasgow from Friday 10 to Sunday 12 March 2023.

To celebrate 10 years of C2C, world-renowned superstars Zac Brown Band,Thomas Rhett and Lady A have been confirmed to headline 2023’s festival. They will be joined by Nashville’s hottest and most buzzed about artists Midland, Jordan Davis, Old Crow Medicine Show, Lainey Wilson andMitchell Tenpenny alongside prolific performers Lindsay Ell and Matt Stell. CMA’s international series Introducing Nashville also returns which sees exciting, emerging newcomers share the mainstage for an acoustic set, recalling stories behind their tracks. Further special guests will be announced soon.

In London the unstoppable Breland will open C2C on the Friday night and will co-host the festival across the weekend with the legendary Bob Harris OBE.

The C2C Spotlight Stage will also be back so watch out for news of the full line up in the coming months.

Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Friday 21^st October and are available from:

London + Glasgow – www.axs.com/c2c / www.gigsandtours.com / www.ticketmaster.co.uk
Dublin – www.ticketmaster.ie
Glasgow www.gigsinscotland.com / 08444 999 990

The post Celebrate 10 Years of C2C Festival in 2023 appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Jesse Frasure and Dan Huff Join Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 06:00:04 +0000

Jesse Frasure and Dan Huff join Thomas Rhett for an interview on the fifth episode of Where We Started Radio. Dann and Jesse discuss where they got their start, how they made it in Nashville, and how they all got together to collaborate on Thomas’ past and most current projects. Tune in and listen to the episode on-demand with an Apple Music subscription here.

Dann Huff on playing on artists’ records, learning how to be a record producer

I was extremely fortunate. Luck had something to do with it. I was extremely well prepared. And my story, the trajectory was rather quick. I moved out and there was an opening, there was a great guitar player named Steve Lukather who had just abdicated a major seat. And it was open. And immediately I was playing on A to Z and it was a blur. I got play in a lot of Motown Records, Smokey Robinson, Temptations, Chaka Khan, and then a lot of the pop artists of the day, the big ones during that time were Madonna, Michael Jackson. And again, if you were in the hot seat, you got to sit with all those artists. And then in the rock idiom, White Snake was a big name, and I started to get to play on their record. And then Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand. It was from A to Z. What I found out later in life, the greatest university for learning how to be a record producer.

Dann Huff on playing on “Man In The Mirror,” working with Quincy Jones

Probably the biggest hit that I played on was “Man in the Mirror.” So I mean, it was all an experience to be honest working for Quincy Jones. I was obviously blown away to be in a room with Michael Jackson, he was such a star at that point, but Quincy Jones was a quintessential record producer. Just being invited to that party was great. I do remember those sessions. It was an elevated sense of music. The expectations were high and it was ultimately very professional.

Jesse Frasure on getting settled into Nashville, TobyMac

JESSE FRASURE: There was like this little community of misfit toys forming in Nashville. Guys like Shay Mooney who was signed to T-Pain, a girl named Meghan Trainor, moved down from Nantucket. She was 17 years old and super shy. My wife introduced me to Chris Stapleton, who at the time had some stuff as a writer, but his artist career kind of hadn’t taken off. We’d get together at night and we’d write some songs. And all of us were kind of just doing this creative work, but not purposefully working on country music or anything. And a guy named TobyMac is a huge Christian artist. He was in a group called DC Talk, and then obviously a huge solo career. He was kind of the shepherd of the misfit toys. He took guys like David Garcia, who now produces Carrie Underwood, gave David his first shot. A guy named Cary Barlow who just recently wrote “Famous Friends.” Jamie Moore who writes over at Big Loud. And he gave me my first cut too. So he-

THOMAS RHETT: And the name of that song was what?

JESSE FRASURE: It’s called “Hold On.”

THOMAS RHETT: “Hold On,” yeah.

JESSE FRASURE: And he kind of saw all this pop writing people in town. It was like, “Man, these are some creative people. I don’t need to go to LA. Come work on my records.” And for a lot of us, it was our first opportunity to have any placement in the music industry.

Dann Huff on Faith Hill, when he started to produce other artists

THOMAS RHETT: Who would’ve been your first, “Okay, this is kind of like, this is a big deal. I can’t mess this up artist.”

DANN HUFF: It was Faith Hill, who I recently played on two or three of her records. She was changing producers, and it was Mutt and Shania, who were together then, who recommended me. She hadn’t thought about that, because she just thought of me as a player. So I got that gig. I was actually in the studio at the same time producing a band called Megadeth, which, so it was an interesting time going from Megadeth sessions to Faith Hill sessions.

THOMAS RHETT: Was it the ‘Breathe’ record? What record was it?

DANN HUFF: No, it was the one that had ‘Faith,’ and my first hit was a song called, “Let Me Let Go.”

THOMAS RHETT: Oh yeah. That was your first number one as a producer.

DANN HUFF: I think so, yeah, yeah. And then, and that led to kind of that year I had three albums offered to me at the same time, probably because of that Faith Hill. One was Lonestar and the other was SHeDAISY, and Shane Minor. And I didn’t think that much about Lonestar. It was the most country. I knew the least about it.

THOMAS RHETT: Man, I love that record.

DANN HUFF: And they had a little song called “Amazed” on that record. And so all of a sudden I was a genius. At least that’s what everybody thought. And that’s what led me to the meeting of Keith.

THOMAS RHETT: You’re just like all of a sudden, you’re just the guy.

DANN HUFF: It just happens when it happens. And again, luck, preparation, all that kind of stuff.

Jesse Frasure on how he, Dann Huff and Thomas Rhett started working together

I was writing with Chris Stapleton under the cover of darkness. We’d get into the studio at night, and at the time, we were like, “Oh man, we should try to pitch some songs with this Bruno Mars guy.” And we were doing all these kind of Motown-feeling songs. But we had this one that kind of came together, and Gary Allan put it on hold. And I was a huge Gary Allan fan, and Mom was the biggest Gary Allan fan. So I thought if I got a Gary Allan cut, finally, I’d be worth something in her eyes. No, just kidding. So I remember somehow this little EP of Chris Stapleton tunes was circulating and made it onto your [Thomas Rhett’s] bus, I think, or your business manager at the time passed it on to you. And you called and said, “Hey, I don’t know if I can pull this song off. It’s very different than this first album I just did, but I’m really passionate about it. And I really want to try, and I would like you to produce it with Dann Huff.” So I remember hanging up the phone. We pulled the song from Gary Allan, and we got in the studio. And one of the first things that really impressed me about Dann was how much he liked of the original that he didn’t want to just replace. Even some of my stupid guitar parts or whatever else it was, Dann was like, “Let’s leave that.” I always say that to young producers that work with him now. That’s the most impressive part about Dann. He doesn’t bring his ego into it.

Jesse Frasure on “Hole in the Bottle”

JESSE FRASURE: I was down in 30A, it’s a little beach strip that we all go down to, and I was with Hillary Lindsey and a friend of ours, Steph Jones, and Ashley Gorley, and Kelsea Ballerini was down with us. And we had been overserved at one of the local watering holes.

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah. Watering holes.

JESSE FRASURE: And came back around 2:00 AM. And it’s definitely not a track I would’ve played for Kelsea sober. It just was way countrier than most of her material. But I started playing it, and we had definitely put a few holes in bottles that weekend, and were drinking way too much. And it just sort of came out, this kind of retro feel. But I’m a huge fan, as a producer, of taking styles and blending them together. So it reminded me of a Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins kind of guitar meets J-Kwon, everybody in the club getting tipsy. And these kind of two worlds colliding together, and we wrote this kind of traditional drinking song on it. Brad Paisley ended up hearing the final version and was kind of doing these guitar challenges over the solo, and it kind of just became its own little thing, raising its hand, to where Kelsea decided to make it a single. And then we were fortunate enough to be able to put Shania Twain, who’s come up a couple times in this episode. She’s like the Kevin Bacon. Shania jumped on as a feature. So that’s a cool moment. Basically sharing the creation all the way to… Fortunate enough to see it go to number one.

Jesse Frasure on “Where We Started”

It’s weird, a couple of our favorite songs that the three of us had a hand in, started off as disasters. I remember “Die Happy Man” was a very stressful day. And “Where We Started,” it just was trying to find how does this song live while introducing some organic elements to it. And also giving it life so it wasn’t just this linear kind sitting there song. Kind of going back to some of the original elements of the track, but then the string section and watching that evolve your voice on it. And just the melody. To me, it’s a perfect album title because it summarizes to me where your career is right now. It circles back pre-country again, and gives you a little bit of the old school TR but it’s got all these organic elements and it’s kind of your origin story in a way.

The post INTERVIEW: Jesse Frasure and Dan Huff Join Thomas Rhett appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Parker McCollum and Conner Smith Join Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 06:00:49 +0000

Apple Music Global Up Next alum Parker McCollum and Conner Smith join Thomas Rhett for the sixth episode of Where We Started Radio. Conner and Parker share how they pursued their interest in music, who they consider to be some of their biggest influences and what they are most looking forward to on the Bring The Bar To You Tour. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.

Conner Smith on developing an interest in songwriting,

My mama is an interviewer and a TV reporter, so she was working at the local channel four station, NBC station in Nashville when we moved here, and she was just kind of raising her hand for all the country music jobs. So she would do red carpets and all that. Well, they asked her to host a TV show every Sunday night on the local station, that was called Nashville Music and More, so it was just all about the music scene, so people like your dad [Rhett Akins], or Craig Wiseman, or Rivers Rutherford, she would interview these guys and have them play these massive hit songs, and then talk about how they wrote these songs. So I was a five- six-year-old watching the show and watching these interviews. I would literally sit there and watch them like they were movies, because there was something that fascinated me about telling these stories and writing country songs. So I started to do it when I was six. I was like, “That’s what I want to do,” because I understood that that was a job that was an option.

Conner Smith on getting a publishing deal at 16

For me, it was just always a part of what I did was writing songs. I played baseball and I wrote songs and it’s just always kind of who I was. So when I was 16, I connected with a dude named Zach Crowell, who’s my producer now. And he produces Sam [Hunt] and Dustin [Lynch] and wrote “Country Again” for you. And he saw the video of me singing a song he wrote called “Cop Car” and saw something in me that, looking back at it now, is crazy to me and signed me to a publishing deal. And I was a junior in high school and both my parents and me, as well, they were like, “This is awesome, but you’re staying in school. There’s really no question about that.” Once again, being in Nashville, I was able to go to school. I went to a school called Brentwood Academy that was perfect, man. They let me go to school until about 11:30, and then they let me go write songs at 12:00 on Music Row and then come back and play in baseball games at 4:00. We had my first hometown show in Nashville and all my teachers showed up and to have all their support was massive. But yeah, I mean, I got to do it all and I got to write about what I was living because I didn’t drop out of school and just become an adult. I got to be a high schooler and go to prom and start on the baseball team and do it all, and so I was able to draw from that well to write songs about.

Conner Smith on seeing Thomas Rhett on his first headlining tour

I remember being 16 when you put out “Sixteen.” And I remember playing it for my mom in the car. I remember the road. I remember… And she looks at me after the second verse. You talk about all you want is unsupervised Saturday night. And she looks at me and she goes, “Did he write this about you?” And that same year, you were doing your first headlining tour. It was you and Kelsea [Ballerini] and Russell [Dickerson] and Ryan [Hurd]. I bought two tickets to go to Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville and took this girl that I was talking to at the time. And I was trying to get her to date me. And you’re 16, you’re trying to figure out what to do. You’re trying to be smooth. I think I tried to dance with her on “Die A Happy Man” or whatever. But we go to the show, and then after the next day, two days later, dude, we broke up. And that shows we just never nailed it. So all I know is that five years later, I’m opening up for you on that same tour. So it all worked out just fine.

Parker McCollum on songwriting, his brother’s support

I think I was a freshman in high school, my brother was in college at the time, at Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas. And I’d always be trying to write something that I could play for and be like, “Well, when my big brother got home, I could play it and try to impress him.” And everything I would ever come up with, he would just, I would get no reaction. He’d be like, “I don’t know what you’re doing.” And man, I had just gotten my first truck. I was driving home one day, and I had pulled over into this Jack in the Box parking lot in my hometown, and just wrote down these verses and choruses, a song called, “Permanent Headphones.” And then my brother came home for Christmas break and I was like, “Man, I wrote this song. I’ll play it for you.” And it was “Permanent Headphones.” And after I played it, he’s like, “Dude, you’re going to be really big time in this.” He’s like, “Dude, actually.” He was really the first person to be like, “You’re good. You can do this.” And that was enough, right? So him giving me that vote of confidence was huge for me. And from then on, I was just always trying to write songs like that.

Parker McCollum on writing with Rhett Akins

Man the first time we ever wrote, I think he [Rhett Akins] chewed like an entire bag of Red Man Silver Leaf or Red Man Silver Label and I was like, “Man, me and this guy are going to get along.” And, just really enjoyed riding with him. And, then I think the second might have been the second time we ever wrote together, I’d written that first verse in chorus “To Be Loved By You” on the bus the weekend before. And, I was like, “Man, I just started this other day,” I was, “Maybe we can finish it.” And, I played it and he loved it. I mean, he was like, eyes kind of lit up and every time I’ve ever written with him or we finished it that day and every time I’ve ever written with him, it’s been the same thing, man. We just… It’s like hanging out with a buddy, you know? It doesn’t feel like work. It doesn’t feel like a normal co-write like it’s… You know, we kind of hit it off.

The post INTERVIEW: Parker McCollum and Conner Smith Join Thomas Rhett appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Lauren Akins Joins Thomas Rhett on Apple Music

Imogen Marshall — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 06:00:55 +0000

Thomas Rhett’s wife, Lauren Akins joins him for an interview on the fourth episode of Where We Started Radio. Lauren discusses the music she connects with the most, how she feels about being in the spotlight, and her perspective on the song “Die a Happy Man.” Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.

Lauren Akins on what she envisioned for herself early on compared to what her life is like now

When I imagined my life as a little girl, there were two things that I saw. Three. One was being a mom, eventually. I look up to my mother in so many ways and wanted so much of the life that she had raising us three, but then I also saw, or my heart really longed to travel and see the world, specifically Africa, and that was a dream of mine. Another thing that I saw and dreamed of growing up was being in the medical field. And I really wanted to try to marry the two, of traveling and working in the medical field. It’s not shocking that you ended up in the life that you are in. I mean, we all knew that you were talented growing up. Obviously, it’s your passion, music is your passion. I did not necessarily think that you wouldn’t end up here, but the chances of somebody making it like you have is such a gift, but also so rare, it just doesn’t happen. But I also didn’t see myself ending up with you. So even on the off chance that you did make it, I did not see myself married to someone who is in the spotlight all the time. And once I realized that I loved you and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you it was such a sweet realization and something that I was so excited about.

Lauren Akins on being in the spotlight

The next realization that you were continuing down this path and I was not going to be able to avoid the spotlight was not so easy to take. And if I’m being honest, it’s still is not easy to take. But I also see how we live this life that you were following your dream. But within your dream, you have tried to create and have created so well space for me to be able to have my dreams. Yes, at the end of the day, I would probably prefer not to have millions of people watching what I’m doing. I love to be center of attention when it is like my people and people that I know and people that I’ve grown up with and our family and our close friends. But when it is somebody that I’ve never met before getting on stage and speaking in front of people, it took me a very long time to get comfortable with it. But I’m also realizing that it is not fully my choice how my life goes and that God always has a plan, and this one was way different from mine. But now at 32, almost 10 years into marriage, looking back over our life together, He did marry those two dreams of mine, but then brought all three of them together because now I’m a mom of a daughter from Uganda that I was over there and met her because I was on a medical trip. I could not have dreamed up this life myself.

Lauren Akins on the adoption process for their daughter, Willa Gray

I remember feeling something that was very different and what it felt like to me, in my spirit, was just I have to take care of this little girl. I called you that night on FaceTime and I told you that I met a little girl and I think it’s our job to find her forever home because Willa Gray was one of the truly orphaned children that our organization was supporting at the time. A lot of the kids over there have family members and were not true orphans, but Willa Gray’s story is, at the time, she was. And so when I told Thomas Rhett that, there was kind of a long pause and he said, “We’ll do it. We’ll bring her home.” I don’t even know that you really fully remember saying that because I remember the first time I told this story, you were like, “I did?” And it scared me to death because I wasn’t really sure what this looks like or are we ready for this? Are we going to be good parents? What if we totally screw this up? But there is a reason why every child is a child of their parents and I know that Willa Gray was meant to be in our family, just like every kid is meant to be in their own family.

Lauren Akins and Thomas Rhett on “Die A Happy Man”

THOMAS RHETT: In 2015, I’d written a song called “Die A Happy Man.” And I played it for you, and you loved it. The demo, at the time, was me, Sean Douglas, and Joe London. And I was riding on a bus at 2:30 in the morning, leaving Arkansas. And you can hear the hum of the bus in the background. You can hear out of tune guitar in my 2:30 in the morning voice, which was absolutely destroyed from a weekend of shows. But that is the demo that you fell in love with. And so we went in to record the song, and Dan had added all these extra things like drums and base and background vocals and all this stuff. And I remember playing you the first cut, and you were like, “This can’t be. You’re going to take this to radio?”

LAUREN AKINS: One as much. I was like, what about the other one? You were like, we actually cannot physically use the other one. And I was like, why not? And then you introduced me, the term… What did you call it? Demo-itis.

THOMAS RHETT: Demo-itis.

LAUREN AKINS: That’s what you call it every time. You’re like… Well, you’ve learned now because you wait until you…

THOMAS RHETT: Until I finish the song.

LAUREN AKINS: Until you finish the song, and then you let me hear it.

THOMAS RHETT: Right.

LAUREN AKINS: I’ve come a long way from “Die A Happy Man.”

Lauren Akins on her favorite song from Thomas Rhett’s new album

THOMAS RHETT: What’s interesting is that I feel like “Sixteen” was a very lyric story based song. And getting into this next segment, you told me before your favorite song on my most recent record was one that sort of feels like “Sixteen,” just in different word play. So for someone that is not like lyric heavy like yourself, why’d you choose those two?

LAUREN AKINS: Why’d I do that again? Because of the place that it takes me.

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah, okay.

LAUREN AKINS: I feel like it’s the same story.

THOMAS RHETT: And you’re very nostalgic?

LAUREN AKINS: I’m very nostalgic. And I wouldn’t even say it’s my favorite song on your record. I can’t pick a favorite song and that is not for me to get brownie points with you. I really just-

THOMAS RHETT: It did. It does though. Thank you.

LAUREN AKINS: There are so many that I love and I can’t say one is above the rest. Again, going back to me and you and thinking through my most memorable moments with me and you. And you singing about that in your songs, I feel like “Mama’s Front Door” just is all of it. You know, you talk about our girls in it, which makes my mama heart happy. So I feel like you include everybody in that song and it’s good. It’s so good. But it’s sweet, and of course, it’s got the nostalgia piece for me.

The post INTERVIEW: Lauren Akins Joins Thomas Rhett on Apple Music appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Thomas Rhett on Where We Started

Imogen Marshall — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Thomas Rhett joins Kelleigh Bannen for an interview on Today’s Country Radio for a look at his new album ‘Where We Started,’ out today. Thomas Rhett talks about his mission to raise the bar with every album, collaborating with Katy Perry on “Where We Started” and finding “new ways to say, ‘I love you.’” Tune in and listen to the interview with Thomas Rhett in-full today at 11am PT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET or anytime on-demand at apple.co/_TodaysCountry.

” class=”Apple-web-attachment Apple-edge-to-edge-visual-media Singleton aligncenter” style=”font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; caret-color: #ffffff; color: #ffffff; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; opacity: 1;”>

Thomas Rhett on Continuing to Evolve His Music

It’d be easy to make a record that did really well and be like, “Well that works, so let’s just do that again.” I feel like as artists, we’re always soaking in information from all over the place and listening to all these new things that come out. And you go, “God, that’s really cool. That’s really cool. How could we take a lot of this stuff and kind of morph it into what I do?” And so every record is a challenging process between me and my producers… But I think at the end of the day, if I can just continue to lead with a fresh story and a new way to say I love you, and always trust my producers to take that production to the next level, that’s all we can do. And I’m pretty dang proud of it.

Thomas Rhett on Finding New Ways to Write Love Songs

As you know, every single year of marriage brings a different layer to the love. When I wrote “Die A Happy Man,” me and Lauren had been married maybe four or five years, so still kind of on the riding the honeymoon phase or whatever. But when you start to add kids into it, life just changes. Like on this record, I think like “The Hill” and songs like “Angels” are new ways to say I love you while saying, “How in the world have you put up with my crap for the last 10 years?” You know what I’m saying?

Thomas Rhett on Keeping His Marriage Strong

I think for a long time, people looked at my love songs as, “God, their relationship is just rainbows and butterflies.” And I think that’s a way to say I love you, for sure. But as we’ve been married for 10 years, there’s not one marriage in the world that’s not rocky at certain points. There’s not one marriage in the world that you don’t start arguing about dumb stuff or have really big fights. And so, I think when you have been married this long, you have to continue to find ways to like reignite that fire. There’s always that spark, but how do you make it blow up again?

Thomas Rhett on How He Got Katy Perry to Sing on “Where We Started”

[Allison Jones from Big Machine] called me and said, “Hey, how would you feel about making this song a feature?” And I was like, “Well, who do you have in mind?” And she was like, “Well, I was thinking about sending this song to Katie Perry.” And I kind of laughed because I was like, “First of all, she doesn’t know who I am. And second of all, she probably gets sent millions of songs a day and she’s never done a country collaboration before.” And the next day she literally hit us back and said, “I resonate with this song so much. Please send me the files. I want to put my vocal on it.” And a week later, I’m in the kitchen and my wife’s standing there and I get a FaceTime from a LA number. And it’s just Katie Perry shows up on my screen. And my wife’s like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I don’t know.”

Thomas Rhett on the Experience That Inspired “Death Row”

Next thing you know, me and Tyler [Hubbard} and Russell [Dickerson] are literally in full on normal conversation with men serving a sentence on death row. And then we started playing some songs. There was a guy up top who they had unchained to bring down to the bottom to sing, in my opinion, the most beautiful version of Amazing Grace I’d ever heard. And then you leave and you’re like, “What just happened?”… At the end of the day, it was kind of like, I don’t know, it just reminded me of Christ on the cross and that dude that was hanging next to him. And he was just like, “Can I come to heaven with you?” And he was like, “I promise you’ll be there with me in paradise.” And so I just kept being reminded of that. And I think it’s just kind of proof that no matter what you’ve done in your life, I mean I also can’t imagine what it would be like to be the parent of someone who had been killed by one of these men. And I understand that the song was controversial. I understand that there are people that completely disagree with my point of view. But at the same time, I was there and I experienced it. And it is something that reminded me that we all kind of suck, just in different ways and realizing that you can’t just write everybody off for a mistake.

The post INTERVIEW: Thomas Rhett on Where We Started appeared first on off the record.

ALBUM REVIEW: Where We Started – Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow, Thomas Rhett will release his brand new album – Where We Started – including the immensely powerful new single ‘Death Row.’ The record sees Rhett once more dig back into his roots, a journey that he started on his project Country Again: Side A. Pre-order/pre-save the album here ahead of its release.

Last year, Thomas Rhett kicked off a new era of his music with the release of Country Again: Side A, it was to the surprise of fans then that he announced this year his new project Where We Started rather than Side B of that record. The reason? The joyful return of live music. As Rhett described in an interview with Entertainment Focus, he decided to make that pivot when returning to the stage needing more of the high-energy tracks that we have come to expect from a Thomas Rhett show. The result is Where We Started a pop-fuelled, immensely fun record.There’s a lot more partying, alcohol and fun than we have come to expect from Rhett’s more mature latest offerings, but this is not a criticism given that Tangled will go down as one of our favourite country records of all time. Amidst that backdrop though, there are a number of powerful gems that pack a punch, diving into love, faith and redemption. Where We Started sees Thomas Rhett play again with the boundaries of his sound and the genre, infusing fresh pop sounds, production and lyricism into his music – notably he teams up with pop icon Katy Perry on the title track.

This intention to provide high-energy tracks befitting Rhett’s live set is clear. So, ‘Church Boots’ is a grooving and fun autobiographic melody. Penned by Rhett, Ashley Gorley, Jesse Frasure and Ernest, the track is reminiscent of the vibe of the heyday of Tangled Up, a joyfully disjointed and joyful melody that possesses all the joy at Rhett’s return to the stage. Following track, ‘Bass Pro Hat’ again feels like it could have been a bonus track on Tangled Up, an ode to his wife and Southern living in tandem. ‘My baby got a bass pro hat / Turned back in the cap of my tractor, yeah… Sweet tea, going nowhere fast / Might sound crazy but we like it like that.’ It’s a laid back, slow groove that portrays the slower pace of life, yet fizzes with high energy. So too, ‘Anything Cold’ is an irreverently breezy track, celebrating the joys of an ice cold beer, or jack and coke and ‘Half Of Me’ featuring Riley Green brings in a lazily honky-tonk feel as the duo sing back and forth about wanting to indulge in a drink ‘There’s a world of bad decisions out there, but this ain’t one / Cos half of me wants a cold, cold beer / And that’s the cold hard truth.’ It’s the kind of track that will be a mammoth anthemic staple in its live rendition – you can already imagine half the crowd raising said ‘cold, cold beer’ to Rhett. It’s a marker of Rhett’s ability to play around with instrumentation on this record when you place this track alongside later song ‘Simple As A Song’ – a far groovier, jauntier track, where Rhett is allowed the space to experiment with the production, playing with vocal tracks, ukulele and more. ‘If you’re gonna love me, baby love me simple as a song.’ It’s this ability to change up the feel of these high energy songs that shows Rhett’s versatility as an artist.

Of course, Rhett has earned a name for his autobiographically romantic songs that are as much a part of his set as are these high energy anthems. Where We Started is infused with these, starting with ‘The Hill,’ a musing delight of a track that sees Rhett look back on the journey to this point and the love that he has built his life around. Accompanied by a faint string section, it’s a swelling and tender track where Rhett acknowledges the importance of fighting and working on a long-term relationship ‘Fighting for your love / That’s the hill I want to die on.’ Elsewhere, on ‘Mama’s Front Door,’ Rhett reflects on how many memories and pivotal moments of his life have occurred at his wife’s mama’s front door, ending up now ‘At your mama’s front door, had to knock with my knee / Got three crazy kids hanging all over me / And I sat ’em down, my heart fell through the floor / Watching them run through your mama’s front door.‘ It’s a heartfelt and tender, whimsical guitar-driven ballad, akin to ‘Sixteen,’ in which Rhett showcases the honeyed tone of his vocal. Not to be outdone, ‘Us Someday’ offers a glorious orchestral part in a heart-warming romantic ballad, in which Rhett imagines a conversation with his wife Lauren at 19 about where their life would go, telling that ‘Right now feels like forever / Like it’s a million miles away,’ but envisioning a life with ‘Couple kids runnin’ wild in the backyard / Handprints in a new driveway / Road trips in a packed-out old car / Little League on a Saturday.’ The orchestral string part amplifies the emotion of the track, an idea started on the ‘Slow Down Summer,’ a sun and nostalgia-drenched piano-led ballad, reminiscent to earlier hit ‘Marry Me’ where Rhett dwelled on the idea of star-crossed love, filled with romantic tension. ‘We had our hopes up and the windows down / Fallin’ fast in a one-lane town / Tangled up with your lips on mine / Never seen a brighter green in those eyes and / I put my jacket on your shoulder / Wishin’ the weather wasn’t gettin’ colder / Lettin’ you go, holdin’ onto each other / Closin’ our eyes, sayin’, “Slow down, summer.‘ The gloriously indulgent string section on the track sets this aside, where Rhett negates fiddle and steel in favour of a more orchestral arrangement that gives it a more epic feel that will again translate well to a live rendition.

Three tracks stand aside though in the record, showing Rhett’s depth as an artist and why he has got here from where he started. First, ‘Angels’ lays his love at his wife’s door, praising her for putting up with his flaws. Co-written by Rhett, Josh Thompson, Julian Bunetta and Jaten Dimsdale, it is a mid-tempo, guitar-driven and stripped back powerful romantic track that shows Rhett’s immense vulnerability. ‘You shoulda slammed the door / And changed the locks and said adios to my selfish heart, tore it apart and left me alone / Don’t know why you were patient and wasted good saving on me / Maybe angels don’t always have wings.’ It’s simply a joy to listen to and showcases Rhett’s vocal and songwriting in full force. This songwriting depth is hammered home on ‘Death Row’ featuring Russell Dickerson and Tyler Hubbard – the shining crown jewel of the album. The track was inspired by a life-changing visit the trio took to visit the inmates on death row. Penned with Ashley Gorley and Zach Crowell, the artists sing about their real-life experience performing for prisoners on death row in 2019 and realising that they were much more relatable and familiar than they had previously thought. It’s a powerful song about redemption, faith and forgiveness. ‘I can’t say that he’s in Heaven, who am I to judge his soul? / But Jesus don’t play favourites, sayin’ a name that He don’t know / Yeah I learned that and then some, with them boys down on death row.’ Finally, ‘Where We Started’ with Katy Perry is a pop-infused delight about being proud of how far they’ve come. ‘Just look at that road and think about where we started.’ Vocally, the two superstars match up in surprising form on the track, creating immense harmonies and it is a marker of just how far Rhett has come, remaining firmly in country but infusing pop elements into his records – a shrewd choice.

Where We Started is a delight to listen to, more for these deeper, more mature tracks but it is a record that is built for the live stage. It feels like a disservice to review in the studio form, for the energy that Rhett will infuse into the songs from his ardent fans will make them transcendent in their live translation. Still, Where We Started is a really strong record from start to finish, where Rhett’s joy to return to the live circuit is palpable.

The post ALBUM REVIEW: Where We Started – Thomas Rhett appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Teddy Swims Joins Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 06:00:27 +0000

Teddy Swims joins Thomas Rhett for an interview on the third episode of Where We Started Radio. Teddy discusses how music has moved him, how he ended up with the name “Teddy Swims,” and his collaboration with Rhett on the song “Broke.” Tune in and listen to the episode on-demand with an Apple Music subscription here.

Teddy Swims on hearing Al Green for the first time

TEDDY SWIMS: I was living with my dad for a little while when I was in fourth grade and I started going this school, Middle Ridge in Covington. And we had this teacher, her name was Ms. Barry, and she was like a sergeant in the army. And she was just like… I mean, she was mean. I don’t know where she is now. I don’t know if she’s still alive. I don’t know if she’s ever heard me tell this story because I like to think maybe one day she’ll hear me tell this story. So she used to always tell us, “If you come back from recess and you just shut up and you don’t say anything, you just do your work, I’ll put on the Greatest Hits of Al Green.” And I had no clue. All these kids are, I mean, zipping it. We’re fourth graders. We’re just zipping it. They’re all so excited. So I looked at my cousin, I’m like, “Who’s Al Green? Why is everybody so excited to hear Al Green?” So we get there and she just turns that CD on and I hear, “I’m so tired of being alone…” And I just was like-

THOMAS RHETT: Just got chills, full body.

TS: Who, oh man, I get chills thinking about it. I’ve never been moved like that. So I go home to my dad, I’m like, “Dude, who’s Al Green, man? What is that? I’ve never heard soul music.” It was like, blew me away. And so my dad, immediately put me on to like Boyz II Men and Keith Sweat. And Marvin and you know, real soul after that. And I just had no idea that world existed at all. And that was for me, like when I knew I wanted to do music.

Teddy Swims on how he got his name

We had recorded one song, and our buddy Tyler Carter, he’s in this band, Issues. So Lee is, like, getting his backtracks for tour ready, right? And he comes over. He hears our one little rap song, and he’s like, “You guys should come open up for me on my solo tour.” And I’m at the spot where I’m like, “We have one song, bro, and I’m just not a rapper. I don’t know if we can do this.” And he’s like, “Look, I’m going to London. I’m doing the UK with Issues. I’ll be back in a month. If you guys can have 30 minutes of music, you can come on tour with me, and then we’ll figure out your names, and like, whatever, we’ll just get the whole thing going.” So we write 30 minutes of rap songs in, you know, like two weeks. Waiting for him to come home, and so he gets home and we all have this little meeting, you know, trying to figure out our name, because I was just going to go by Swim, which I found on a drug form, which is, like, someone who isn’t me. And so I was like, “Well, obviously, if I just call myself Swim, then I can be a rapper and I can be, like, tough and hard like a gangster.” And then, you know, he was like, “What if we make it Swims, we just put “sometimes” on it so it’s just “Someone Who Isn’t Me Sometimes.” And so he was like, “Why don’t we just call you, like, you’re already called Teddy. How about Teddy Swims?” And I was like, “Nah, I hate that, dude. I hate that.” And they were like, “No, that’s tight, man. That’s a dope name.” I was like, “Nah, I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.” And Tyler Carter was like, “I’m putting that on the flyer. It’s Teddy Swims. It’s Addy Maxwell and Teddy Swims. It’s going on the flyer.” I was like, “Bro, I do not like Teddy Swims.” And so I did our first tour, after 10 years of singing, as Teddy Swims, and I was going on there, like, doing terrible rap songs.

Thomas Rhett on “Broke,” meeting Teddy Swims for the first time

Julian [Bunetta] had sent me a song called “Broke.” And I initially thought he was pitching me the song. And I remember trying to put the song on hold, because I wanted to record it for my record. And he was like, “No, no, no, no. We think this is going to be on Teddy’s project.” And I was like, “Well shoot, man. I don’t even know if he knows me. I would love to put a feature on. Anything. I just want to be involved in any kind of way.” I mean, we didn’t even meet at that point. I did all my vocal stuff at my house. I think we sent it to you guys and then turned out super sick. But the day that we got to meet was one of my favorite experiences with you and just getting to hang with you, getting to share a tequila drink with you. We wrote the saddest country song in the world that day. It was just a day that I will never forget.

Teddy Swims on “Broke,” how it changed the way he approaches songs

When Julian [Bunetta] hit me up about it like, “Hey Thomas is down to put a verse on this.” And I was like, oh man. What? I was lit. I’m going, calling my dad and my cousin Angel. My cousin Angel’s your biggest, biggest fan. Bigger fan than I am… She hits me freaking out. And at first I told Julian, “ I just don’t know how that’s going to work though. Because that’s not that type of song.” You know? And I also didn’t know how versatile you were. Because I feel like as a writer sometimes, or as an artist, if I’d even call myself that. If I hear a beat that goes and leans in a certain direction, my mind immediately jumps to writing that song that way. If you put a pop punk song in front of me I’m going to give you a Blink-182 song. It’s not going to sound… It’s not going to be like Teddy authentically on… I mean, unless I authentically could make myself everything, but I can’t just be me. And what you did to “Broke,” and just approach it like you would approach anything. And it was almost like “Broke” was nothing different to you. It was like you just approached it the way Thomas Rhett approaches something. And just your feature. And that’s not even something I’ve been able to tell, but it’s changed my whole mind about how I approach beats or songs now.

Teddy Swims on “Bed on Fire” and Ingrid Andress

TEDDY SWIMS: They wanted to do another version of it, and they wanted to make it like a duet. I think Dallas Davidson was the one that got in contact with Ingrid. Either way, we set up a FaceTime, and Ingrid FaceTimed about it. She was going to go record the vocals with Julian. So I was like, “Look, I’d love it if you write whatever, do whatever.” She immediately was like, “I love this song, and I am not going to write anything to this song. The second verse is perfect, and I’m just going to sing it. I’m just glad you’re going to let me on it. I love this song.” You know, sometimes you hear yourself so much, and you hear your own voice on everything, all the time, and you kind of hate your voice. Everybody hates their own voice, especially my talking voice. If I go back, and listen to this, I’m like, “Ew, dude. You are really a redneck, man.”

THOMAS RHETT: I love hearing that side of her story, because I thought that was spoken from such a true, pride-less artist.

Thomas Rhett and Teddy Swims on “Angels”

THOMAS RHETT: I can’t remember honestly where the idea came from. I think I’d watched TV the night before and wrote it down in my phone.

TEDDY SWIMS: Yeah. I don’t know. I know you had the idea when you walked in though. You were like, “I want to write this song called this.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s beautiful.”

THOMAS RHETT: I feel like, and you know this as well too, sometimes you sit down and you’ve been writing for five hours and everybody looks at each other and we’re like, “Should we call it a day?” You know what I mean? And then sometimes you get into the room and you’re like, “Holy crap. It’s been 45 minutes and we just finished something that I feel like is a masterpiece.”

TEDDY SWIMS: Yeah. Yeah. Those songs just write themselves and you just got to get out of the way. Just like not overthink. Songs like that, like “Angels,” it’s just…

THOMAS RHETT: A hundred percent.

TEDDY SWIMS: And I remember too, when we wrote it, it was originally going to be for me. And I remember you being like, “Is this too country for you, Ted? Is this too country for you, man?” I’m like, “No, no, I love this. I’m not afraid of the country. I’m not afraid of…” I went to your house and cut it. And then you kept following up with me about it. Like, “Hey look, man, if you’re not going to put that song out, I’ll cut it.”

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah. For sure.

TEDDY SWIMS: Finally, like a couple of months later I remember…

THOMAS RHETT: Crossing my fingers. Yeah.

TEDDY SWIMS: Yeah. I remember being at a dinner in Atlanta and I got a text from you of a demo that you did of it. And you were like, “Well, look. I cut it, man. It’s mine.” You know? I was like, “Geez [laughs] but go put it out, man. Take it. Tear it up, man,” because I was just immediately like, “Dude, what was I doing even singing that dang song?” Man, you crushed it.

The post INTERVIEW: Teddy Swims Joins Thomas Rhett appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Tyler Hubbard and Russell Dickerson Join Thomas Rhett

Imogen Marshall — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:00:04 +0000

Thomas Rhett welcomes Tyler Hubbard and Russell Dickerson to the second episode of Where We Started Radio. Thomas, Tyler and Russell discuss how they got involved in music, the artists that influenced them and the story behind the song “Death Row.” Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand with an Apple Music subscription here.

Tyler Hubbard on what sparked his interest in music, who influenced him

I have a vivid memory of being at youth camp, church camp in like seventh grade, I believe it was. Seventh or eighth grade. And that was my first, I guess, when music had a major impact in my life. And I really realized my passion for music, how powerful music could be and how it was impacting me. and so then I began learning how to play guitar and writing songs and basically writing church songs. And then obviously all my influence is from country and rock and hip hop and all the other genres really led me to writing different types of songs and enjoying the craft of songwriting and learning through high school. But 15-year-old me was probably listening to a lot of hip hop, rock, Alter Bridge, bro. I mean, Alter Bridge. I mean, what you know about Alter Bridge? Every hip hop artist out there, just about every worship artist as well, Shane & Shane, Chris Tomlin, and I was a huge fan of. You guys all know we grew up learning how to play the worship stuff. And then all the … David Crowder. Corey’s cousin [laughs] but then also listening to country radio day in and day out.

Tyler Hubbard on how music first started out as a passion, and how he realized it’s what he wanted to do with his life

It was just a passion. I really did not know that this would be where I was landing. And honestly, if somebody had said, “Hey, you’re going to do music for a living.” I would’ve laughed first of all, then I would’ve thought, well, surely it’s going to be in church, because that’s what I do. I lead worship for my youth group. I’m playing the worship band in my school, and this is where God’s going to use me. So yeah. Talk about really having some eye opening moments and some, I guess some moments in my life where I really had to trust that I was doing the right thing because it felt like, wow, this is so far from what I ever dreamed I’d be doing. But once I realized that there was a career called songwriting and a job where people got paid to write songs, I realized okay, that’s what I want to do.

Russell Dickerson on getting started in music, his influences

RUSSELL DICKERSON: My foundation is country music. I was born in a small town, country music was everywhere. My first time performing in front of people as like, at school, was Garth Brooks, “Standing Outside the Fire.” Like headset mic and everything, bro.

TYLER HUBBARD: Hey and now here we are. Bringing it back in 2022.

RUSSELL DICKERSON: That’s how I started, that’s how I’ma to finish. So that foundation was always there, but then when I was 10 years old, we moved to Nashville. And bigger city vibes like in the school systems, everybody listens to everything. So on the bus dude, same thing. I was listening to Juvenile, I was listening to Blink-182, I was listening to Linkin Park. You know what I mean? And so that was like a musical detour from country. 15, 16 started playing guitar and that all started with my youth group. I learned guitar so that I could lead worship with my youth group, play Chris Tomlin and David Crowder and all those songs.

THOMAS RHETT: So you’re rocking Juvenile in the parking lot, but playing all those songs in the building.

RUSSELL DICKERSON: Right. So I had to repent, so I had to go lead some worship. But yeah, as soon as I started playing guitar, it was like worship songs and then you learn the power chord, you start playing Nirvana. So like all that kind of stuff and then I remember in fifth grade hearing Usher came out. And it was just like this different, swaggy, R&B type stuff and I just remember…

THOMAS RHETT: You decided to started liking, you started really loving girls at that point.

RUSSELL DICKERSON: Right. That was my awakening moment.

THOMAS RHETT: Thank you, Usher.

Tyler Hubbard on moving from Georgia, attending Belmont, and meeting Brian Kelley to form Florida Georgia Line

It was quite a journey. And to be honest, I wasn’t even planning on going to college. And I was just going to live in Georgia and run my little car detailing business and be an entrepreneur and work for myself. And I just was like, “I’m going to do what my dad did.” And then as all my friends were visiting colleges, and I went and did some college visits, I was like, “Oh. If I don’t go to college, I’m going to be missing out on a lot of fun stuff.” So I was like, “I think I might want to go to college.” What’s going to hold my interest long enough to make it through four more years of school while I’m interested in music? Okay. Well, moved to Nashville at 18, went to Belmont. Still, at that time, had no idea I would be a full-blown songwriter or artist or really pursuing that. But learned a ton, took it all in, realized at some point that songwriting was a profession. And that was what I really loved. Just to make a long story short. Went through three years, four years of college, didn’t really do a ton of music because everybody at Belmont was so good. And then probably my senior year, got it back out with some confidence and said, “I want to start writing songs.” That’s about the time that BK was doing the same thing. He was on the baseball team. We had known of each other, but not really hung out until our senior year. We approached each other and were both drawn to each other musically and creatively and said, “Let’s write some songs.” And one thing led to the next, man. And that was where I really felt, honestly, the pull of God just being like, “Hey, you’re supposed to do music with this guy. Believe it or not, I’m not going to have you in church. I’m going to have you at bars. And you’re not going to be singing songs about God. You’re going to be singing songs about beer.”

Tyler Hubbard on transitioning into music and performing, trusting the process

TYLER HUBBARD: I was honestly a little confused, and it’s all come full circle. And I really see big picture of what He [God] was doing and what He was setting up at the time. But it was definitely a transition in my life where I was not expecting it. And just going by where the spirit led me and if the doors were open and I was going. And so that’s what we did, and that’s what got us where we are. It was a heck of a journey. And I don’t know how deep you want to get into it.

THOMAS RHETT: How old are you? You’re 30-

TYLER HUBBARD: I’m 35.

THOMAS RHETT: Okay. We’re basically the same age.

TYLER HUBBARD: Yep.

THOMAS RHETT: And I remember when FGL started to pop, I was like, “What is happening right now? This is changing the game.”

Russell Dickerson on Josh Turner and what influenced him to apply to Belmont

I was in bands. We were just like rock bands, metal bands, and I just wanted to play music. I didn’t care what it was. But I remember seeing the CMT special. I was at MTSU at the time and I saw this CMT special with Josh Turner. He’s at Belmont, right at the foot of music row. And he’s talking about his career path and writing songs, and dude, I just start crying. Tears are streaming down my face because it struck such a deep desire of mine that I didn’t even… I mean, I knew that I wanted to play music, write music, perform was the biggest. I just want to be on stage. When we go see bands and stuff, I want to be that guy where you just hold the mic out and everybody’s screaming your songs. Seeing that special dude, it just struck a chord. And I was like, that’s it. That’s when I literally went straight downstairs, filled out my application for Belmont, had to audition for the school of music and stuff. So I did all that, got in, and I really just like… Kind of the same thing is like, there’s so many amazing artists and songwriters and singers around that you just kind of get thrown into that scene.

Russell Dickerson on meeting Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley, writing together and having creative freedom

One of those nights was at 12th and Porter. I think it might have just been me on acoustic and afterwards, a mutual friend of me and Tyler’s was like, “Hey, I got these guys that I want you to meet.” And brought me over to Tyler and BK. And they were like, “Dude, great set, great songs, we should write,” and we did bro. That’s one of like my favorite foundational memories of my career was we didn’t have publishing deals, we didn’t have anything except just a passion to write songs, a passion to perform, to do this country music thing. I put out my first EP, pretty much wrote every song with them. That was just such a fun, innocent, unadulterated time to write songs and create.

Tyler Hubbard on the story behind “Death Row”

Al Andrews, who’s a friend of ours, and has had his ministry in the prison system for a while, goes and visits every month. And I know us three are all friends with Al and had been telling him together and separately, “Hey, I want you to take us sometime. I want to do that.” And so somehow the stars aligned and all of our schedules were, we got to go do this. And I remember driving there with you guys and Al, and just being like, “Yo, what is this going to be like?” We were a little nervous, a little excited, we had our guitars, we were just going to go play some songs and kind of hopefully minister to these guys and just give them a little love and just kind of, hear their story and just hang out. And man, what a special day that was. I can’t help but keep thinking about the way we all felt. You said scared to death. We were all kind of nervous. And we were all asking Al all these questions, tell us, “What are we about to get into?” When we were driving there, riding in the truck, riding in your truck. I just remember all feeling a little anxious, a little nervous, a little excited, but I can’t help, but think about the way we felt when we left and how we were all just processing in the truck and talking about basically what had just happened and how it was making us feel, inside and outwardly. We were all kind of just taken back and surprised, but also inspired and grateful for that experience. And like we had sort of talked about before, I think we got to see firsthand kind of the power of Jesus and the power of the Lord.

Russell Dickerson on “Death Row”

All we have is these documentaries on Netflix of worst prisons in America, face tats, and stabbings and stuff. That’s why people are on death row. You know? But it’s like… But as [Al Andrews] has given us his rundown, I’m like, this doesn’t sound like that. This doesn’t feel like that. And just the gentleness that Al talked about these guys with; and sure enough, when we walk in, it’s like, smiles everywhere, hugs everywhere. And every time I talk about this song, I end up quoting every line. It’s like, “turns out they are a whole lot like I am.” They really are just like… They’ve had time to… I don’t know. It’s just like, they’re us, man. They are totally normal dudes, but they’re just stuck in a prison cell for the rest of their lives.

Thomas Rhett on the story behind “Death Row”

I can still see it vividly. I remember faces. I remember there were 30 people on the ground that got to be… Or on the bottom floor that got to be there on “good behavior.” And then there were folks up top that literally had their feet chained to the ground and I was like, “What the crap are we doing here?” You know what I’m saying? I don’t know if y’all remember this or not, but, I can’t remember if you started that set or who started it, but I remember being like, “What do y’all want to hear?” And one of the guys raised his hand and he was like, “I want to hear Christmas in the Country.” And it was a Christmas song that I’d released three weeks previous to that. You remember that? And I was like, “Well, we get to watch CMT for an hour every day.” So they knew every song that we had sang. And man, when that dude came down and sang, Amazing Grace, I just remember being like, “This is the most terrifying, most spiritual experience I’ve ever been a part of.” So thank y’all so much for being on this with me because that’s a day that I will never forget and a day that’s really hard to explain until you listen to this song.

The post INTERVIEW: Tyler Hubbard and Russell Dickerson Join Thomas Rhett appeared first on off the record.

INTERVIEW: Thomas Rhett Announces New Apple Music Show

Imogen Marshall — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 17:00:10 +0000

In conjunction with the upcoming release of his new album, Where We Started, Thomas Rhett announced Where We Started Radio on Apple Music, a new weekly radio series airing on Apple Music Country. Each week, Thomas Rhett breaks down the making of his new album alongside family, friends, and collaborators, pulling back the curtain on his own creative process and looking back on how a 20-year-old emerging songwriter with a new record deal became a chart-topping, globe-trotting country icon. Guests include famed producer Dann Huff, fellow artists Riley Green and Parker McCollum, Thomas Rhett’s own wife Lauren Akins, and more. On the inaugural episode, Thomas Rhett welcomes his father Rhett Akins, who discusses when he first knew he wanted to pursue music as a career, the story behind writing one of his biggest hits, and what it’s like co-writing songs with Thomas Rhett. Featuring music from George Strait, Reba McEntire, and more. Where We Started Radio with Thomas Rhett will air weekly on Tuesdays on Apple Music Country or demand here.

Thomas Rhett on launching Where We Started Radio on Apple Music Country

“It’s been a lot of fun working with Apple Music on this show especially because it’s offered me a chance to have deep conversations with a bunch of people who have been instrumental to my journey as an artist.”

Thomas Rhett on having his father, Rhett Akins on the first episode

“It was great being able to dive into his early years on the road, when I was too young to remember what was happening, just how different the landscape of music was. I don’t think I understood that back then, if you didn’t have a record deal, nobody was ever going to hear your music. It was really cool to hear my dad get really into depth of the challenges, but also the coolness of not having your life portrayed on an Instagram post the next day. There was actually some mystique back then that we don’t really have a lot of today. Hearing that story from my dad was really special.”

Quotes from Episode 1

Rhett Akins on “Slow Down Summer,” writing with Thomas Rhett and “Life Changes”

RHETT AKINS: I just remember sitting in the living room on the couch. I think I had an idea called “Summer Sometimes.” “I think about that summer sometimes.” And then that kind of morphed in— I think you took that and rolled somewhere else with that and it eventually turned into “Slow Down Summer.” I just remember thinking about that song a lot after we wrote it because the piano lick was so cool. [Sings melody].

THOMAS RHETT: We have a good track record going.

RHETT AKINS: We do have a great track record. You would think that father and son, writing together would never work, and if it worked, it maybe worked once.

THOMAS RHETT: But I think it’s cool because you know me so well. Obviously. And I feel like I can write from a perspective of how I remembered it, but then you get to dive into your perspective of when you remember that, when I was 16, 18, 21, whatever it was so that’s pretty unique.

RHETT AKINS: That’s what I love about the song “Life Changes” that we wrote together, is that you obviously lived all those things but I also was right there watching you live those things. So it was cool for both perspectives to make it into the song.

Rhett Akins on seeing Hank Williams Jr., realizing he wanted to pursue music

I was a fan of everything my whole life. Country, rock, rap, blues. But I’ll never forget going to see Hank Williams, Jr. in concert when I was fourteen. And it was a rock show. I loved his music, but I’d never seen him. Back then of course we didn’t have videos and you couldn’t go on YouTube, so I had no idea what Hank Jr. was going to be like on stage. I just thought he was going to walk out there and sing his songs. He walked out there in a buckskin jacket [laughs] He had a guitar with a shotgun barrel on it. He ripped his shirt off, he played the piano, he played the drums, he played fiddle. When I saw that I was like, “This is something. This is an idea here that I might could… I might could try to do something like that.” Because I always loved writing lyrics, country lyrics, but I also loved KISS. I loved Van Halen, and I loved the Rolling Stones, but I never thought I was a rock singer or a rock writer. So this Hank Jr. concert was like the melding of everything that I ever wanted. Country songs with rock and roll attitude and that changed my life.

Rhett Akins on his hit “That Ain’t My Truck”

You know, once you get to town and get a little bit established and people find out that you have a record deal, a lot of songwriters want to write with you obviously because they’re like, “Hey, this guy’s got a chance to have a hit song here.” So they hooked me up with Chris Waters and Tom Shapiro who were two giants. I mean they were dudes that you fear when you walk in the room. You’re like “Gosh… I hope I don’t suck today.” [laughs] We got in the room and they were so nice, and it was just normal conversation. And I don’t know how we got on the subject of a girl I dated in high school, that I went by her house one day and another guy’s truck was in her driveway. I don’t know why that story came up. But they just said “So what’d you do when you saw the other guy’s truck in your driveway? Did y’all get in a fight? Did you go knock on the door? What happened?” And I said “No, I just looked over there and said ‘that ain’t my truck.’ He’s a linebacker and I’m a quarterback so I probably shouldn’t fight this guy.” [laughs] So I just drove off and I was never in my mind thinking we were about to write that. And one of the two guys said “What’d you just say?” And I said “’That ain’t my truck,’ and I just drove off.” And he goes “Man, that’s a great song title.”

Rhett Akins on Reba McEntire

When I called home and told everybody that Reba and Narvel wanted to be my manager and I was going to go on tour with Reba, that was like when the bell rang, that was the touch, final… That was like, this is legit now. You know, I played some shows but I’d never played… I mean it was like 50 people or 100 people. We’re talking like twenty-thousand with Reba. And you were there, I remember you were so excited about when the light… You went to sound check… I mean, the whole family came to Pensacola, Florida. I mean like thirty people from Georgia came with the family to go to sound check and like… I think just to see in their mind like “He’s not lying.” Like he’s really doing this. I learned so much from Reba. Mostly how professional she is, how classy she is and still is. She took care of everybody from the guy that swept the floor to her guitar player. Reba would be like “Rhett, what do you need? You need something to drink? You need something to eat?” She was sitting there writing her autobiography while she’s asking me, can she fix me a sandwich or whatever. I’ve never seen somebody who was the GOAT. Like the star of all stars that was still so humble and nice to everybody. So thank you, Reba for setting that example for everybody I’m sure that’s ever toured with you and met you.

Thomas Rhett and Rhett Akins talk about when Thomas Rhett first got more involved in music

THOMAS RHETT: I guess it would have been in 2010, I would have been twenty years old. And this is when you were really writing with The Peach Pickers. You, Ben [Hayslip], Dallas [Davidson], and I think I was majoring in Communications at the time at Lipscomb and really had no idea what I wanted to do but I knew that I kind of wanted to start writing with you. I remember my first cowrite I think was with you, Bobby Pinson, and Dallas Davidson who have all won multiple BMI Songwriter of the Year Awards and I was just a college kid.

RHETT AKINS: Yeah, you started out with the lackeys there. [laughs] Yeah I remember you coming over all the time and writing, just sitting and watching me and Ben Hayslip and Dallas Davidson write. You had a little cover band, you were playing gigs at college and I think you played some maybe in Knoxville or Athens a couple times. I’ll never forget that Frankie Ballard was putting out his first album and the A&R person said “I know you’ve written a lot of songs with Frankie. Is there any way— how can we get a lot of younger people to the show?” And I said “I know how. My son goes to school and has a band, and I can guarantee he can get fifty people co come to the show just to watch him play cover songs.” Ben Vaughn from EMI and Joey Lee from William Morris all came up to me during the show and said “That’s your boy, right?” And I was like, “Yeah,” And they were like “Is he serious about wanting to do this?” And I said “No, he was doing this for fun,” and they were like “Well he’s actually, like, good. He’s actually like legit.” [laughs] And I was like “Are you serious?” And they go “Yeah. If he wants to tour and he wants to write songs call me because I see something in this kid.” To me, that’s when it started to get real.

Thomas Rhett and Rhett Akins on Thomas Rhett getting more involved in music, continued

THOMAS RHETT: And then, moving on from that, that period of life to me felt like a whirlwind. Because I felt like me and you, Dallas and Ben probably wrote what…thirty, forty songs? Over my junior year. Getting to really understand what it looked like to be a quote unquote hit songwriter in Nashville. I feel like I got that vision from you and Ben and Dallas and that’s when y’all’s roles started, you know what I’m saying? Like y’all had multiple number one songs over that time period. I remember when you wrote “Honey Bee”…

RHETT AKINS: I remember sending you the demo to “Take A Back Road”…

THOMAS RHETT: “Take A Back Road”…and I’d go into the studio and re-sing them.

RHETT AKINS: … and put your vocal on. Yeah, you helped a lot because we wouldn’t think “Take A Back Road” or “Honey Bee” was that great of a song, but I sent you the demo and like you’d call me at night and go “Dad, ‘Honey Bee’ is like a smash. Can I go record that?” And so that was, a lot of your instincts on what we wrote made us feel better about pitching those songs.

Thomas Rhett on how he got he record deal, and how he ended up with two of his biggest hits

I remember so vividly, dropping out of college as a junior, and because of that show that you had me play with Frankie Ballard, got me a developmental publishing deal over at EMI with Ben Vaughn. I had written a song called “Beer with Jesus” and another one. And I remember going into Big Machine and meeting with Scott [Borchetta] and Allison [Jones], and I played them “Beer with Jesus” and I want to say it was a song that we wrote called “Slow It On Down.” I think those are the two songs that I played. Got a record deal. “Something to Do With My Hands” was my first single that I wrote with Stapleton, died at fifteen on the charts. “Beer with Jesus” was the next single that died at fifteen on the chart and I was like, “This is it.” [laughs] I get two singles and then I go back to college, you know, and to say that I did it. And I remember calling you that day like “Hey, I need a hit song severely. My next song has got to be a hit. And you sent me “It Goes Like This” and you texted me “Get Me Some of That.” I remember playing them for Lauren [Akins] and she was like “Now these are songs that I like.” [laughs] And so, that’s when Lauren came into the picture as co A&R of my career.

Thomas Rhett and Rhett Akins on “It Goes Like This”

THOMAS RHETT: And so we went into the studio and recorded “It Goes Like This” and everybody at the label freaked out. And they were like “We think this is going to be your next single—“ and I was like “I don’t know.”

RHETT AKINS: I was so scared to death.

THOMAS RHETT: I was like “This is nothing like the last two singles we just put out.”

RHETT AKINS: I’ll never forget Bobby Bones premiering it on his show and I was in my truck. That’s when I still lived in Hendersonville. And he goes “Coming up next we got the brand new one from Thomas Rhett, ‘It Goes Like This’” and I literally pulled over on the side of the road and almost threw up. [laughs] Because I was like, “If Thomas Rhett fails in this business I don’t want it to be because of me. I don’t want my song to be the one that killed the career here.” So I was so nervous when it came on. I remember going to see you when you were still playing like little theaters and stuff and every night the crowd just seemed to get bigger and bigger and know that song a little bit more. Then I knew it was taking off.

THOMAS RHETT: Yeah, that was definitely a, for me, “Where We Started” moment.

Thomas Rhett on “Die A Happy Man,” Thomas Rhett and Rhett Akins on “Life Changes”

THOMAS RHETT: I remember when “Die A Happy Man” did what it did, it was the biggest song of my career at that point. That can be a blessing and a curse, right? Because you can put out a song that’s giant but if you don’t have anything to follow that, where do you go from there? During that time period writing for the next album, which the album was called “Life Changes,” I’d never really gotten super personal about my life until “Die A Happy Man.” So I remember being at the farm, it was me, you, Jesse Frasure and Ashley Gorley, sitting at the farm. And I think you said “It’s crazy… how crazy your life is” because I was in the middle of an adoption, we had just found out that Lauren was pregnant, my career was doing what it was doing and I was like “How do we…what do we do next?” And you started talking about how crazy it is, you know, how much your life has shifted in the last five or six years. And we sat down and wrote what I thought would never see the light of day.

RHETT AKINS: Me too, it was so personal. There’s not many people who lived the story that we wrote. I think it was like, “If nothing else, this should just be on the record. I just want this on the record.” And then the next thing you know, it’s the title of the record, right? Then the next thing you know it’s going to be a single.

THOMAS RHETT: A single. I was terrified! [laughs]

RHETT AKINS: On “Crash and Burn” and “Life Changes,” those are two singles where I was like “I’m not sure these are going to work. They might be too out there.”

The post INTERVIEW: Thomas Rhett Announces New Apple Music Show appeared first on off the record.