Thomas Rhett Talks Pressure, Authenticity, and Navigating the ‘Wild West’ of Today’s Music Industry [Exclusive]

Music has always played a significant role in Thomas Rhett’s life as he had ‘90s country star and famed songwriter, Rhett Akins for a father, and also kickstarted his own career at a young age, leading him to achieve 22 No. 1 hits, 16 billion streams and plenty of awards over the past decade. However, with all that success, Rhett has also had to learn how to navigate the amount of pressure that comes with being in the limelight. 

While discussing his musical journey with Country Now, Rhett revealed that one of the biggest lessons he’s learned along the way is the importance of maintaining authenticity because he believes that no amount of success is worth changing who you are. 

“There’s always pressure, but I think it’s up to you to decide what that pressure does to your creative system,” he shared. “I think you can allow pressure to make you want to chase what is popular or you can allow the pressure to make you kind of hone in and do what you do best. I’ve definitely been guilty of both at times in my career.”

At this point, he finds that any weight he feels stems more from the standards he’s set for himself rather than from the opinions of others. 

“The pressure does not come anymore from people loving or hating a song. The pressure comes from me of going like, did I make this out of real authenticity? Because I can die on that sword. If I put all my stamp and money and heart behind the thing and the world just decided that they hated it, I’m good failing there. But if I chased and tried to copy or tried to do what was working, and it failed, then I can’t live with that.’’

He continued, “I think what I’ve learned in 15 years of doing this is that the moment you start chasing, by the time you put out what you chased for, that trend is over. So you might as well do what is in your heart because what is in your heart can’t really go out of style.”

The “Gone Country” singer has also noticed a new kind of pressure emerge for artists as a result of the major shift the music industry has seen in the past five years, with the uptick in artists using social media as a tool to drive their careers. 

When Thomas Rhett started out, the only way to get new music out to fans was to convince radio stations to play his songs, but in today’s generation, a hopeful singer can grow a fanbase almost overnight just by going viral on social media. This has forced many of the artists who are already well-established in the business like Rhett to learn to adapt to the changing times. 

“I think there’s a lot of artists that are in my category of age or have been doing this long enough to kind of be like, ‘alright, we’ve got to relearn how to do this’ because I feel like when I first started, you worked your way up the ranks. You had a hit, you got asked to go on a big tour, you opened for everybody and their mom, you played every club in the world, and now you really can have, in some capacity, not overnight, overnight success is not really a thing, I do think you have to work really hard to get where you are, but you can have a viral moment and all of a sudden be opening for the biggest act in the world.”

While many newer artists are more adept at social media, Rhett admits he doesn’t envy them for entering the industry now, as he views it as the “Wild West of music.”

“I’m having to relearn this new model of how to do social media again, how to get your songs to stream and how to still make radio be such a huge part of your career. I think there’s just so many more outlets you’ve got to get to today.”

Luckily, he’s already established an incredibly loyal fanbase who is always eager to hear what he’s working on next, and that includes his new album, About A Woman, dropping on August 23. Thomas Rhett has already shared a taste of the 14-track collection with songs like “Gone Country” and “Beautiful as You.”