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.”
