Thomas Rhett talks about his country album ‘About a Woman’

Thomas Rhett. Photo Credit: Josh Aikin.

Country superstar Thomas Rhett chatted about his new country album “About a Woman,” which will be released on Friday, August 23rd via The Valory Music Co.

Background on Thomas Rhett

Thomas Rhett has spent just over a decade gathering 22 No. 1 hit singles, 16 billion streams and multiple awards– eight ACM Awards including the 2020 “Entertainer of the Year,” as well as two CMA Awards, and five Grammy nominations.

Recently, he also launched a tequila brand, Dos Primos, which offers Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo variants.

The theme of the new album

“Once I started listening through all of the songs, I think they had a very common theme,” he said. “They were literally about a moment I had in my relationship with my own wife.”

“There is a track on the record called ‘Something About a Woman,’ and that seemed to resonate with the rest of the project,” he noted.

Song selection process for ‘About a Woman’

“Picking 14 songs was really complicated for me,” he admitted about the song selection process. “You are always looking at what other people are doing. For me, there is so much music that comes out every day, especially every Friday.”

“When I see records that have 20 or more songs on them, I don’t think I can sit down and listen to all of those in one sitting,” he noted.

“I wanted this record to be a very cohesive record that you can pop it on, and it can fill up a 30-minute time cap in your life,” he explained. “The sequencing part is always so hard, because as a songwriter, I write so many songs.”

“For a long time, my producer and I were trying to figure out how to make it even less than 14 songs such as 10,” Rhett said. Ultimately, I landed with 14 tracks because I felt that was just a good number that felt not 30 but also not 10.”

“There was a lot of thought that went into the sequencing of the project, and a lot of thought on how many songs to put on there,” he admitted.

“I want to get to that point in my career, where I am constantly releasing music, so after this record comes out, I will give it a few months, and then, I will keep dropping music as it feels exciting to me,” he acknowledged.

When asked about the challenges in making this record, Rhett responded, “I think every record gets harder because you have memories of all these records, stats, and the hits.”

“In every record that you put out, you are trying to one up everything you’ve ever done before. Now, I am looking at it from the perspective that every record is just about the new season of life that you are in,” he said.

“The challenging thing for this album was finding the right 14 songs that said ‘hey, I love you’ in new different ways,” he acknowledged.

“This record was a huge collaborative record, and honestly, I wanted to play this record for my wife, and her be pumped that I wrote these songs about her, but also the fact that they made her want to dance at the same time,” he said.

“My wife and I are in a very fun season of life right now,” he admitted. “All four of our kids are in school, and we’ve never had this type of freedom in the last nine years.”

“We are getting to hang out more, and we are rediscovering our youth as parents, and that is reflected in the music. I would love for this record to better than other records, but at the same time, as long as I am honest and true, that is always a win in my book,” he elaborated.

Lessons learned from this album as an artist, songwriter, and storyteller

On the lessons learned from this album as an artist, songwriter, and storyteller, he reflected, “My three-word sentence for this record is: progressive yet authentic.”

“In every record, I am always trying to push myself sonically, vocally, melodically, and lyrically. In this record, I feel like the way that it is different, is that a lot of it is very simple,” he said.

“I am a writer that loves to make things not simple,” he noted. “I really want you to think really hard about a hook or a second verse or a bridge. A lot of that was writing with a bunch of folks from LA. Julian Bunetta does a great job in keeping things really simple.”

Rhett continued, “We spent a lot of time on intros of songs because these days, people’s attention spans are less than they’ve ever been. We really try to grab your attention in the first seven seconds of the song; that was different for me.”

“I started a lot of songs on this record with a chorus, which I never do. We kept going back to the ‘50s and ‘60s, and every song ever in those eras, started with a chorus,” he said.

“From a vocal standpoint, there are notes that I’ve hit on this record that I’ve never dreamed I could hit, which was terrifying and awesome,” he acknowledged.

“Also, I changed the tone of my voice on a few songs, and I never really played a character on a song before, so in many ways, a lot of that was challenging but it also brought a new joy and a new light to a lot of these tracks. Honestly, the writing process was a lot different,” he elaborated.

Thomas Rhett on Teddy Swims

Rhett listed Teddy Swims as his favorite artist, at the moment. “Teddy is my favorite artist right now, hands down,” he underscored.

“Teddy has a voice that happens once every 100 years,” Rhett said. “I felt the same way about Chris Stapleton when I heard it for the first time in 2009.”

“I feel like Teddy Swims is doing amazing things in music, and I think he is going to be a global superstar in less than two years. So, I would love to collaborate with Teddy Swims, for sure,” he exclaimed.