Rhett Akins

ALL QUOTES BY RHETT AKINS

You’re obviously concerned in whatever business you’re in, with what the market is calling for. But for me, being an artist and not just a businessman, it’s a hard line to walk being a businessman and an artist at the same time.

While I didn’t want too many ballads, my first two albums were mostly uptempo, so on this album, I wanted to have a lot more ballads. You know, I’m not traditionally a real romantic guy on the surface. But I guess, when it comes down to making a record and spreading your heart out in a song, I seem to be a little better on record than I do walking and talking my normal self.

I don’t consider myself a real romantic, but when it comes to singing my songs, I guess that’s my outlet for the romantic side.

I really think when I sing like that, it’s really sincere. I maybe am a romantic deep down; I just don’t know how to express it in my everyday life all that well outside of singing a song. When I do sing a romantic song, I really do believe my true feelings are coming on. After all, you’re in that room in the recording studio all by yourself, and it’s easier to show your feelings in the studio sometimes then it is outside in the real world face to face with someone you love. This was my third CD, and I think I want to make every one of my albums the best album of my career.

I’ve never believed in settling for just the best past performance. I guess I got that from my days of being a football player, you could throw ten touchdowns and the next game, what does it matter? You’ve got to do it again. My daddy always told me,’You can’t win today’s ball game based on yesterday’s newspaper headline. Every game is a new one, regardless of what you did.’

So when I was making this new album, I was thinking the whole time I can’t just fluff this one off because “That Ain’t My Truck” was a hit, or “Don’t Get Me Started” was a hit. I can’t expect people to go out and buy my new album because of what I did in the past. So I really try to keep that in mind. I feel that I’ve got to get better at what I do and I try to find ways to still be Rhett Akins but be better at it.

I really wanted to find a better way to approach my singing and solidify just who Rhett Akins is as an artist.

I wanted to record songs that, if I’m fortunate to be around with my career as long as guys like George Jones and Merle Haggard, that when I am that age, and people are coming to see me, I want to be comfortable with the songs I cut thirty years ago. That was really a major goal on this album.

When were in the studio, there’s plenty of times when I tell the producer; I’d rather hear a little dobro in there or add a little pedal steel. I’m just not into too much rock music in my sound; I’d rather have a fiddle and stay country with my sound. This album I tried to keep it as natural sounding and as acoustic-based as I could.

All the stories you hear about folks going into the music business and moving to Nashville, well in most of those stories their parents are really against them going into the business. My parents are really supportive. I wouldn’t be here without the support of my family. I’ve always been ambitious and wanted to do things but I had it on the inside, and it was really hard to get it out on the outside. I’ve just always had a shy streak, and maybe it’s an insecurity, I don’t really know for sure what it is.

I always know I can do something on the inside, but I just can’t get the nerve up to try and do it on the outside.

My parents would hear me sit in the bedroom and play the guitar, and they’d ask me to come out and sing for my family and relatives after supper, I’d be so shy I couldn’t even come out of my bedroom and sing for my cousins. I don’t know why it was just embarrassing. This was from high school until my freshman year in college.

My family was instrumental in getting me to come out of my bedroom with my guitar and sing my songs for people. I mean I could sit outside on a Friday night in the back of my truck and sing songs with my friends all night long. I don’t know why I didn’t feel as embarrassed around them singing my songs. But get me around anybody else, or at times around even my mom and dad, and I’d say, ‘Well, I don’t know if I want to do this.’ So my parents were really instrumental in getting me to come out and play and really instrumental in get me to write my own songs. Because I could sit there and sing Alan Jackson or George Strait all night long, but my parents would tell me,’You need to get out and sing your own songs.’ They also encouraged me later on to go to Nashville. They told me stories of how there were times in their lives when they wanted to do something and they didn’t and how they both looked back and wished they’d tried. They admitted they didn’t have the guts to try back then and they told me they didn’t want the same thing to happen to me. So they told me to get on up to Nashville and if it didn’t work out I didn’t have to come home with my head between my tail. I’d have just come back and lived my life.

You know when I was playing football for our high school team(Lowndes County High School Vikings), we’d have 15,000 people out their watching us play. Here I was playing quarterback in front of 15,000 people. It was more of a camaraderie deal with having the whole team out there with me. I didn’t have the weight of 15,000 people on my shoulders. But here I am on the other hand, you put three people in a room and give me a guitar and it was like the end. I couldn’t handle it. So the help my parents provided me with and the love they gave me really helped me to take my career to where it is today. I still have everything from my football days. I still have my football helmet and jacket, and the jacket still fits (he laughs). I call home during the football season to find out how they’re doing. They’re Number 1 in the state right now. Like I said though, when you’re playing your music and singing in front of people, you’re spilling your soul out in front of people. It was really hard for me to step out and do it. I was the first one in my family who stepped out and sang country music. Everybody in my family played football, so it wasn’t a really big deal, because you grew up expected to play and it wasn’t a big deal. Even though my uncles played music,nobody in my family pursued a career in music. I played piano in church and I could pick a little bit of guitar, but I never thought it was going to become anything serious. I think that’s where the difference was,I was serious and I wanted to do this.

So when your serious about something, then you wear your heart a little more on your sleeve.

I’ve lived in Nashville for the past five years. The more hits you have the more success you have, so many people think they know what your life is like and they really don’t. A lot of people I meet, think my life is limousines all the time and signing autographs and smiling while you’re doing your deal. I can tell you that I’m up 5 A.M. every morning and I go to bed around two. I’ve been on six airplanes this week and visited about ten radio stations. End.