As a producer, Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts pays attention to what’s happening on current country radio, in terms of current trends and sounds, but when it comes to Rascal Flatts’ music he says, “I think that we’ve always gone with the song first because the song sort of dictates the approach, the ease in the studio to putting it together. We obviously want to have modern techniques and modern sounds and things like that but I have always believed that if you can sit and sing a song with an acoustic guitar and it translates, that’s how you really, really need.”

Once they know they have the right song, Jay says, “We try to stay current, we try to push ourselves we try to push the envelope as much as we can. I think that goes back to the days of our first records though.  We always said if we couldn’t be different we didn’t want to do it.  So hopefully we’re still pioneering some new trends.”

You can definitely hear some of those fresh sounds on Rascal Flatts’ new song, “Yours If You Want It,” which is the lead single off their forthcoming album, which will be released later this year.

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Rascal Flatts – pay attention to radio trends  :45

Jay DeMarcus – “I keep my radio on so I can hear what country radio is up to and what’s going on and who the new folks are and what production trends are happening. But when it comes to our music, I think that we’ve always gone with the song first because the song sort of dictates the approach, the ease in the studio to putting it together. We obviously want to have modern techniques and modern sounds and things like that but I have always believed that if you can sit and sing a song with an acoustic guitar and it translates, that’s how you really, really need. So everything else is just icing on the cake. We try to stay current, we try to push ourselves we try to push the envelope as much as we can. I think that goes back to the days of our first records though.  We always said if we couldn’t be different we didn’t want to do it.  So hopefully we’re still pioneering some new trends.”