Thomas Rhett today chatted to Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio. In the interview Thomas Rhett gives a vulnerable look at his life as an artist and father, sharing his earliest memories of growing up on the road with his dad and the release of his new music.
Thomas Rhett joined Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country to take a vulnerable look at his life as an artist and a father. Rhett shared his earliest memories of life on the road with his father, Rhett Akins, and talks about how music is shaping his daughters’ lives. The two also discuss insecurity around releasing new music and how Rhett overcame that to make his favorite music yet with his ‘Country Again’ double-album project.
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Thomas Rhett Discusses Shift in His Music
“This shift in me has been happening since the beginning of 2019. There were just certain things in my life that I cared about so heavily for the last decade that I just didn’t… I don’t want to say I didn’t care about anymore, but I cared way less about them. There were just bits of success and bits of ways that I measured success that just didn’t matter anymore. It was just like I’ve been doing nothing but grinding and working my butt off and comparing myself, just like we all do, and then there was one day where I was just like, ‘Why do I care? Why do I always chase something? You know, with a lot of these records that I make.’ The music just started to kind of shift into something that like I was trying to do when I was younger, like as a 19-year-old who had just signed a publishing deal, but I hadn’t lived enough life yet, you know? There are so many things that have happened in this decade that I have never really written songs about. I mean I’ve been nostalgic for sure in my music, but it’s 11 songs that I feel like are just so much more back to what I was doing when I first started out in this business, like back in the day when I was listening to nothing but Eric Church and really wanting just to be him, you know, minus the sunglasses. I don’t think I can pull those off ever.”
Thomas Rhett on Comparison and Being at Peace with His New Music
“The day that you tease a record, I start to go into this pit of just like, ‘Good Lord, is anybody going to like it? Is anybody going to like it? What are the comments going to be?’ And like I told you earlier, for the first time ever, I mean, I want people to like it for sure, but I know that I like it. And that’s kind of what matters to me now if that makes any sense… It’s very freeing. Yeah. It makes it so much more fun. I think when you’re stuck in that comparison world, I mean, comparison is the thief of all joy, and you start to put a record out, but then someone the week before you put a bigger one out, and you go, ‘Well, mine doesn’t matter anymore.’ You know? And I think we’ve all been in that position where you’re super excited about something, and then somebody comes out with a history-breaking single or a history-breaking record, and you’re like, ‘Well, maybe we should just can this.’ You know?”
Thomas Rhett on Singing with His Dad When He Was Young
“When I see a picture of me being young like that, on the road with my dad [Rhett Akins], I can definitely go back there, because my dad’s got all these hilarious photos and… I used to just wear the same red cowboy boots and a diaper every day. By the time I was four years old, there wasn’t really a song on the radio that I did not know all the words to. That’s all I wanted to do was sit in the living room and have Dad play every country song on the radio so that me and him can sing them. It’s been pretty wild. It was kind of destined, maybe not for me to do exactly what I’m doing now, but I think I would have always done something in music because it was just so part of my childhood and so part of my dad’s history.”
