Thomas Rhett grew up in the music industry by means of his singer-songwriter father Rhett Akins ("
All About Tonight," "
The Shape I'm In," "
Farmer's Daughter"). His full name is Thomas Rhett Akins; he chose "Thomas Rhett" as his stage name because of the Atkins glut in country music (Trace, Rodney).
During high school, Rhett was part of a band named The High Heeled Flip Flops.
While studying business and communications at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Rhett formed a cover band and began playing frat parties and other gigs they could get. His father persuaded him to take the stage one night at a Nashville showcase, and EMI Music's Ben Vaughn, the same publisher who had signed his father many years earlier, offered Rhett a publishing deal.
After half a year, Rhett succeeded in landing the song "
I Ain't Ready to Quit" on Jason Aldean's 2010
My Kinda Party album. The cut came at a pivotal time. "I would say that was a huge turning point in my life," Rhett told Billboard magazine. "I'd been writing songs for about five or six months pretty hard, and I was trying to balance songwriting and school - which was a pretty hard task. I wrote it with two other guys who had never had a cut, so for three no name writers to get our first cut on the Album of the Year was an incredible experience as an amateur songwriter."
The following year Rhett signed a recording contract with Big Machine Records' Valory Music Group division. "
Something To Do With My Hands," which Rhett penned with Lee Thomas Miller and Chris Stapleton, was released as his debut single.
In October 2013, Rhett and his dad made country music history, becoming the first father and son who wrote, co-wrote or performed five of the Top 10 singles on the country music charts. The songs they charted with included cuts performed by Florida Georgia Line, Billy Currington, Lee Brice and Justin Moore. The fifth one, a Akins co-wrote, went on to be his son's first #1 single, "
It Goes Like This."
His wife Lauren is a trained nurse Thomas has known since grade school and married in 2012. She has been a muse for several of his songs, including "
Die a Happy Man" and "
Star of the Show." Lauren has also featured in a number of her husband's videos, including "
Vacation."
When he does have a little bit of free time, Rhett likes to spend it with his friends. "If it's in the summertime, I love to go fish," he said. "I like to play golf. I'm not very good at playing golf but I love to do it. It's relaxing. I just like to chill with my buddies. I don't get to see my friends a lot being on the road and so when I get home, me and my buddies will go out or just kick it at the house and drink a beer, talk about life. I like to unwind when I get home; kinda chill out."
Rhett doesn't need to write a song to express what he's feeling in everyday life. "I'm an open book," he told Great American Country TV. "If I'm in a bad mood, you're gonna know. If I'm happy, you're gonna know. And if something's bothering me I'm gonna tell ya. You can ask my wife Lauren, I've always been that way."
Thomas Rhett and his wife once got stuck in an elevator with Post Malone. This unusual incident came to light when Thomas Rhett was asked by CMT which country star he would want to be stuck in an elevator with, and he revealed that this scenario had already occurred in real life.
"I did get stuck in an elevator with Post. I was trying to leave this party that he was coming to. And I got into the elevator, and he goes, 'You're staying, right?'" he recalled. "I looked at my wife and was like, 'We're staying!'"
Thomas Rhett and Reba McEntire's son Shelby Blackstock are the same age, and they spent plenty of time together while their parents toured the country. This resulted in the "
Fancy" star sometimes babysitting young Thomas. He revealed during a round of "Most Likely To" with CMT that Reba was no pushover. "This one time me and her son Shelby were playing with some toy or something that we were arguing over, and Reba came and stopped that really fast," Rhett recalled. "Nothing would fly under Reba's watch."
Thomas Rhett and Luke Bryan share a big-brother/little-brother type bond. Rhett openly modeled his early stage presence on Luke's style, laughing that critics accused him of "just trying to be Luke Bryan." His response: "Heck yeah, he's the biggest artist in the world. Why wouldn't I?"
His first job involved laying hardwood floors for his uncle in Nashville. Rhett worked multiple summers in this role and credits it with teaching him persistence and the value of hard work. He enjoyed this job and even helped redo flooring in his own home years later.
The years when Rhett was touring as an opening act were some of his most financially challenging but also the most fun. During that time, his "money isn't everything" ethos really sunk in, and it informed many of his later songs. "
Ain't A Bad Life," for instance, finds him celebrating not just his loved ones but also simple pleasures like fishing and college football (specifically the Georgia Bulldogs).
