Could Rascal Flatts Be Game for Country-Rap?
After 14 years of touring together, the guys of Rascal Flatts still aren’t sick of each other! In fact, it seems as if the trio—Gary LeVox, Joe Don Rooney, and Jay DeMarcus—are closer than ever.
“Life is completely different now,” LeVox — the group’s lead singer—told "The View" after they performed on the show, Friday October 10, 2014. “Now everybody’s married, and Joe’s got three kids, and now everybody’s got kids. We’ve grown as artists, and we’ve grown as people, and we’re trying to continue to hone our craft.” Watch this clip from the episode:
LeVox jokingly states, “The one dynamic that’s changed is that all of us have our own buses.”The downside—if you consider pizza a downside—would be the boxes and boxes of pizza after the show, which makes dieting a challenge.
“We try to eat healthy on the road and try to make it healthy for everybody that’s on tour with us,” he said. “I don’t know who ever came up with [the idea of] pizza being the typical load out food… Willie Nelson or Morris Day and The Time… but it continued on for all of these years! And all of us have always been affected by frequent heartburn, and now with Nexium 24Hr (nexium24hr.com) we don’t have to worry about that anymore,” the 44-year-old spokesperson for Nexium said. Luckily for LeVox, after Rascal Flatts’ Rewind Tour raps, he can splurge on all of the toffee chip ice cream his heart desires.
As for the fans, they have a lot to look forward to. Would the group ever consider doing a rap or hip-hop collaboration in the future? “Oh yeah, for sure!” LeVox said. “It’s funny because a few years ago, we’d actually talked to Snoop about doing some stuff,” he added. “I think I would love to do something with Eminem. I’ve always just loved his style; he’s so unique and different. He’s so creative, and in the rap world, he’s been really groundbreaking and he’s set the bar so many times.” Of course, I’d love to do something with Jay-Z too,” he added.
LeVox was kind enough to answer some questions via phone from our Twitter followers:
What’s the most interesting fan you've seen at your shows? - @GaryDonDemarcus
“One of the weirdest things that sticks [sic] out to me is a lady that scheduled her C-section around our tour date so she didn’t miss the show. Yeah, that’s crazy, and as true as it gets. She told us, she was like, ‘Listen, I did not want to miss your concert. What I did was I scheduled my C-section early, and I didn’t want to miss the show.’ I said, ‘Please, if you get pregnant, don’t do that again. Let it incubate as long as it needs to.’”
If you hadn't chosen music as a career, what would have been your second choice? - @kimludwin
“Probably soccer; It was actually sports that came before music growing up. I played soccer, basketball, and baseball, but soccer was my first love. So that’s really what I wanted to do. Oh lord, I don’t think I could now. I was first in All-State my sophomore, junior, and senior year.”
What are you dressing up as for Halloween? - @CJlovesJD
“My daughters want me to go as Big Smo—this country rapper dude on A&E—but I'm not going as Big Smo. So, I don’t know. I’ll probably go as what I go as every year: probably Brittany and Brooklyn’s dad.”
Want more Rascal Flatts? Check out their cover of Diane Warren’s song “Compass” in the flick, Heaven Is For Real. They originally recorded the song for a project Michelle Obama was working on, but ended up using it for this film instead. You can also catch the guys performing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN for a Breast Cancer Awareness event on October 28, and at their personal charity event at The Rascal Flatts Surgery Center at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt coming up soon.
Also check out their performance of "Payback" on "The View" in the following clip: