Thomas Rhett’s new album, Country Again: Side A, implies a return to his country roots, and in some ways it is, but Thomas explains, “So much of this album is nostalgic but it’s also somewhat of just a moment in time. So it’s kind of a lot of lookin’ back, but a lot of things that I’ve learned over the last 10 years – becoming a better dad, becoming a better husband, becoming a better friend, a better man. And so, this collection of songs, to me, is exactly where I’m at today.”
Thomas also explains that Country Again isn’t meant to be taken literally. “Even in the song ‘Country Again,’ it’s not even about puttin’ boots back on or fishing again,” he says. “It’s just about kinda getting back to more of the simplicity of life that I think I kinda misplaced over the last, I don’t know, decade or so. And I think 2020 had a lot to do with me kind of gettin’ back to my roots and just living a little bit more of a simplistic life. And that kinda showed through in the songwriting of this first collection of songs, which is called Country Again: Side A.
Even though many of the songs on Thomas’ new album were written in 2019, he says, “I think that it took 2020 and all of the hardship that came with it to kind of re-discover some stuff about my life, about myself, about being a husband being a dad. I feel like when you’re forced to stop doing what you think your identity is and you’re kind of forced to live with yourself, at the core of you, you start to ask yourself a lot of questions. Who am I without a guitar? Who am I without a stage? And I think that I just kept being reminded that I am a dad, I’m a husband, I’m a friend. And I really started to just embrace more of those moments so much more, obviously being forced to stay at home.”
Thomas did a ton of songwriting during the pandemic, and he says, “I think a lot of these songs definitely would not have been written without this year. I would say they might’ve been along the same lines, but I think lyrically the content never would’ve even popped into my head had we not been in a pandemic.”
Perhaps the hardest part of making Country Again: Side A for Thomas was narrowing down which songs to include on the album, because he started with 75 – 100 to choose from. He narrowed those down to 25 that he ultimately chose to record, and Thomas says, “In many ways it was the hardest record I’ve made because we haven’t done it like this in a long time. But in some ways it was the easiest record I’ve made because I was so sure in the songs and so sure with the choices that we made on what to call the record, how we were going to brand it as a theme. And so for me, it just felt like every song we recorded was like that’s right, that’s right. At least for me, in my brain and my heart they were all the right decisions that I wanted to make as a person today.”
While Thomas recorded 25 songs in the studio, there are only 11 on Country Again: Side A, but he says, “Side A obviously implies that there is a Side B. Talking with my team and trying to figure out what we wanted to do, how we wanted to release music after so long off the road, I had so much time to sit and think and so much time to be in the studio. Side A was definitely grouped together for a reason. I feel like all of these songs really are representative of that ‘Country Again’ theme, that nostalgic vibe of songs that I was playing in my dorm room in college. These are the songs that I wish I’d had the knowledge to write then but didn’t really have the capacity to say what I needed to say.”
Side B, which will be released later this year, “is a lot of that as well,” says Thomas, “with a little bit more experimentation musically, lyrically, with a whole slew of different writers.”
While fans will have to wait a while to get Side B, Thomas says, “At the end of the day, I think when both projects are out and you listen to it all the way down, this is going to be, I think one of my most cohesively, ‘pointing toward the title’ records that I’ve made in a very long time and I’m very excited about it.”
Country Again: Side A from Thomas Rhett will is available everywhere today (April 30, 2021), featuring his #1 song, “What’s Your Country Song,” and his new single, the title track, “Country Again.” Listen for both songs on Bloomington-Normal’s #1 Country, B104.
