Thomas Rhett: Dad Makes Him A Better Songwriter
Thomas Rhett is a talented and prolific songwriter, having written many hit songs for not only himself but other artists, too. Thomas gives a lot of credit to his co-writers, including his dad, Rhett Akins, who make him a better writer by challenging him to step outside of his comfort zone.
Thomas told us in a recent interview, “Me and Dad have been writin’ songs since I was seven years old, and I do feel like there’s always been a heaviness on the lyric. Like every time we’re sitting there and we’re goin’, ‘Well, that’s good enough for the second verse.’ It’s really not good enough for the second verse. This crew is really good at just continuing to chip away and chip away and chip away until you can listen to that song and go, ‘That’s as good as we can do.’”
He continued, “I think forever my struggle has always been writing an uptempo that has meat to it. Because if I were to sit down with a guitar, I will always sit down and write a six/eight ballad, and somebody’s goin’, ‘No. You’ve done it. Let’s do something a little bit different.’ And it’s so good to surround yourself with people that always challenge you to make you better, and always will go, ‘Man I don’t think that’s the line,’ or ‘I don’t think that’s the idea we should write,’ or ‘I have an idea that is something similar to that. Let’s try this.’”
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Rhett concluded, “I think when you can be in the room with a lot of people that aren’t ‘yes people,’ I think you’re surrounding yourself with the right people. And that’s a lot of what this crew has helped me do, is to really be kind of brutally honest by going, ‘Man, I think you can do better than that,’ or ‘I think this is really great.’”
In 2021, Thomas released a song he wrote with his father, Rhett, called “Things Dads Do.”
