Thomas Rhett turned to his young daughters when it came to choosing over 40 songs for the final cut of his new album.
When speaking about his sixth studio album, Where We Started, Rhett shared how exactly he widdled down the tracklist to his “favorite” album yet.
“I was alone with my thoughts in 2020 and wrote a lot of songs, just me and the guitar and I wanted to write some more things that made my kids smile and made my kids want to dance,” Thomas Rhett, 32, says of the album’s inspiration.
And, so the father recruited his four daughters, Willa Gray, 6, Ada James, 4, Lennon Love, 2, and Lillie Carolina, 4 months, whom he shares with wife Lauren Akins, 32.
“I started playing the record and I kept taking notes of the ones they wanted to listen to over and over again. There were five or six on there that now when we get in the car, my 2-year-old will be like, ‘Play daddy song, daddy song,’ ” he says. “And if it’s not one of those six, even if it’s an older song of mine or a newer one, those are the only six that she cares about. So those made it on the record for sure.”
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“You can look at a kid and be like, ‘You’re too young to understand.’ But I feel like kids understand feel-good,” he says.
“That’s the reason Encanto is the biggest movie on the planet. I mean, ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ [is played] in my house 48 million times a day, because it feels good.”
He continued, “It feels amazing and I want to dance to it. And so I feel like kids have a really good read on what would make other people smile. And I really just started to trust that and listen to it.”
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Rhett was also inspired by the 10-year anniversary of the day he released his first single, “Something to Do with My Hands” in 2012 and his extensive journey as a musician.
“Looking back and being like, ‘Golly,’ I can’t believe where we have come in this business compared to playing clubs for 12 people,” he says.
“Not only that, but even in my marriage and looking back, getting married at the age of 22 and now having four daughters under the age of 6 — it’s kind of a pinch-me moment in a way.”
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