Rascal Flatts

0:25Why was it the first song people need to hear from this record? Well, as a interview started. Yeah. Okay, so let's make sure. I know. There you go. We felt like this single was the perfect bridge between what people fell in love with Rascal Flat's 14 years ago. And kind of moving us forward into a new generation of country music listeners. We felt like it was the perfect bridge gapper. See, I've heard you talk about the bridging the gap, which must be an interesting road to the cross as well. But also like the title of Rewind implies a look back, but it sounds like you're moving forward too. So that's interesting. Yeah, it's a funny dichotomy because it's really. You want to fuck with people. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I can say it every year. I love it. Yeah. Rewind that fuckers. No. That's always been a little chippy this morning. Now, when it is funny, it's called Rewind.

1:11The main reason we cut the song is it was we just thought it was a great song. It was a sexy appeal to it. It's been a while since we cut a song that had kind of a sexy appeal. And we never dreamed though, being the first song we cut, the three of us on the producing end of Rewind album, we did about what eight tracks, I guess, together in your house. Rewind was the first one. And became the lead single, became the title of the record, the name of the tour. We never dreamed that Rewind would be that important after we cut the song. But man, it's just done so much. What was it about the song when you heard it for the first time? You were like, we need this one. I'd say for me what it was was the middle of that course when it goes so you can let it fall one. I could just envision a whole crowd of people singing that spot in the course. It was so booky, so catchy.

1:57And I knew also that once we got it up into Gary's range and took it up, he could really sink his teeth into that course. That's what got it for me. I don't know. Dogs all over the neighborhood bark too. It's up there. It's not going to be different for you, Gary. I don't know. No, that's pretty accurate. Yeah. I thought it was a great lyric and a great song and a great way to say, hey, here we come. Check it out. Speaking of here, you guys have done two shows on this tour already? We did. So are these ones coming over the new songs? How many are fitting into the set? None of them. No, I'm kidding. We've got like, I think we're doing three. Yeah. We're doing Rewind. We opened the show with Payback and we got a little surprise in there that we're not going to tell you about. All right. I understand.

2:43I understand that you will talk about that song. All right. How come that one needed to open the record? We started work with this producer in LA named Howard Benson. He's a rock producer. We've never met Howard before and he had never met us and he had never done anything in country. We'd never done anything in the rock world. And that was one of the first songs he had put on hold to work with us. And we're like, what a cool tune, Payback. So we went into the studio, cut it with and the track turned out. You know, just fantastic. And it just felt like the right song, the lead, the album off. Because the sound we started finding with Howard was quite, he brought something really kind of different fresh to the table that we were really trying to go for. And the foundation of that track, the energy behind it, Gary's vocal, there's a lot of things on that that became a very new thing for Rascal Flats to blend into what Rascal Flats sound.

3:28As it always been. And great tempo, great message to him. All the chicks love it, you know. Everybody's been hurt. And in this song, you know, the guy's going, you know, he's not talking about, you know, trying to take your home, trying to do this. He's going, hey, look, I'll help you make him jealous. So he's actually the cool guy. He's having got it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, without trying to score. We don't know that we don't know what the end of that story is. Yeah, that's the Payback World 2, one of the next record. The Back-Part 2 would be extraordinary. Now they're married. Yeah. See, yeah. There you go. Yeah. So when people bring up, payback and bring up. How we want to bring up, we want to bring up. Oh, it's all another song. Yes it is. What song is that? It's that Kanye West.

4:14Yes it is. I was going to ask you. How about you put, you got on to it. Don't worry about my shoes. When someone writes you a song like that and you have ideas, it sounds like kind of maybe for a second part of the song. Does that ever happen? Have people written you a song and you'd be like, you know what, I've got another story that can go along with us now. You know what has happened is we've taken a song that was really, really close and really good and sort of restructured it to make it even better. Well, you know, I hate to call anybody out for fear of hurting somebody's feelings, but there was a song on this record that we thought would be better from a perspective of making it a different point of view than what they presented it as. And so we went back to the writers and they were kind and gracious enough to listen to our thoughts and they went back and basically rewrote the whole song and brought it back.

4:59But you know we've done that a bunch of times. Oh, no, twice. Just little things like even in rewind, you know, try to talk it because the original lyric was try to talk Tom Petty into giving us an encore. And it was right at the time, George Strait, he announced his retirement. So you know, we changed George Strait. So you kind of, you know, tweak, you know, tweak little things. That's funny. I was wondering how many names you guys went through for that part to see what was sound right. It was just the one. Just the one. Yeah. He's in the booth. It was easier to sing than Tom Cocharin. Canadian, thank you for bringing that up. Oh, yeah. Well, life's a highway. You know, amazing good to us. Speaking of Canada, you guys are here in one of my favorite cities to say Dauphin, Manitoba. You guys back in Toronto in the fall as well in a mission BC. Cheryl Crozantour with you.

5:44What songs are you most excited to see from Cheryl every night? Now that you get to sit on the side of the stage and just watch them. I've been out the last two nights that we opened the tour and she's just an incredible musician, incredible singer and performer and everything she does is good. First cut is the deepest is a favorite of mine. Favorite mistake is a favorite of mine. So I mean, I'm like, I'm scared that she's going to hire extra security to keep me away from her because I'm like, I'm like a brand of Lambert songs she does. That's kind of odd, but she kills it. Her band is a killer too, man. Geez, her band is slamming. But I tell you what, we bring her out during our show. We have some fun with her. We do one of her own. Do you want to give me what's on that? I think it's a bit. She doesn't turn for the band. She is. And we do what hurts the most. She's behind us. It's like on a projection with a shadow.

6:30You got to come see it. You got to come see it. You got to come see it. You know, she moves. You got to put up on your tour. I saw you guys in Calgary years ago and what really stuck out was the theatrics of it. It's a show. If people are going, it's concert and you guys are great musicians and all. But it's really a show at the end of the day too. So how is this tour? How do you prepare for a show like that? Does it change? It's tough to because 7 world tours we've done now and a lot of touring in North America mainly but in the northern North America. That's what I'm saying. It encompasses Canada too. We take it. But it's hard to change and evolve from each. We've done just about every kind of show you can imagine. But with this new one, we dug deep. We found some ideas. Even from our band guys, we're giving us thoughts and opinions on what we could try to do. There are all fire now.

7:16At least they tried. It's a couple of surprises. We can't give you too much because we want everybody to go and see it and witness it for themselves. But we did some cool things this time around that's really different from any tour from the past. Also hired Raj Kapoor, this guy that has come in and helped us put the show together and look at it from a different point of view. He gets so used to knowing what works and kind of falling back on that that it was fun to have this guy come in and go, you know what? I've watched everything you have on YouTube and I've seen a bunch of concerts and here's what I think we can do to make it fresh. And it's been really neat to have him there sort of piloting the ship for us. Do you ever write with lives to show in mind? Yeah, we have. But you thought of how is this going to work in an arena? Absolutely. The song I wrote with Wendell Mowgley and Neil Prasher called Here's To You was all about

8:04being in an arena and thanking the fans. We definitely write thinking about how it's going to translate live for sure. Cool. I got to let you go. I know you have a big day. So five quick questions, one word answers. Road or studio? Studio. Road. Road. Leonard McCartney. McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics, melody or rhythm? Melody. Melody. Yeah. Melody. If someone's never heard rascal flats before what song do they start with? Broken or less broken around. Well, life's a highway. It's not even your own song. Okay, all right. In one word, rascal flats. Dedicated. Blessed. Unworthy. Unworthy. That's the first one I've heard that one.

8:50To be around us. See. Quitters. Sounds of bitches. I can't wait to edit that and hear you just crushed the mic and did all my headphones. There you go. Thanks guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's good. Thanks buddy. That was fun. Really?