CURRENT SINGLE: “Half of Me” featuring Riley Green
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Thomas Rhett’s self-titled debut EP, which featured five songs that would later appear on his debut album, It Goes Like This, including “Beer with Jesus,” “Something to Do with My Hands” and “Make Me Wanna,” when it was released 14 months later. When Thomas thinks about how far his career has come in the past ten years, he’s not entirely sure he can explain how he got here and why his career has been as successful as it has been, but he has a few ideas.
Thomas Rhett – music 10th anniversary 1:09
“Yeah, I really don’t know, to be honest with you. I mean, hard work for sure, and I think having people that believed in a vision. I feel like any young artist that comes to me and says, ‘Man, what do I do in this situation?’ It’s like, if you’ve got a gut then you’ve got a vision. And I think trusting people that believe in that and help you accomplish that… Cause I look back at so many weird, pivotal moments in my career, like releasing a certain song that was really off kilter, and my manager looking at me being like, ‘Hey, this might not work. Are you okay with that?’ And then internally, you go, I am. Because it’s all about risk and reward, and some of the decisions we made happened to be more reward than they were a risk. And if I got deep I could go back and name 10 or 12 those moments where it kind of felt like this is kind of crazy, this is pretty off kilter, but I already saw this in my brain, so let’s go execute it. And I just feel like I’ve been really fortunate to work with so many amazing songwriters, where when I came with a vision for an album or a vision for a tour, the band was on board, the writers were on board. And I think it really does take a team of people believing in something kinda crazy. And yeah, I can’t believe it’s been 10 years, cause it feels like it was kinda yesterday. But good grief, 10 years later, four kids later, it’s just kind of a whirlwind to look back at it all. And I truly feel like I’m kinda just gettin’ revved up, in a strange way.“