Thomas Rhett says he loves sharing his passion for music with his four daughters, but has vowed not to push them into following in his footsteps.
The US country music star, 32, and wife Lauren, 31, are proud parents to daughters Willa Gray, seven, Ada James, five, Lennon Love, three, and one-year-old Lillie Carolina.
While he himself is the son of singer-songwriter Rhett Akins and has previously shared a snippet of a song Willa wrote on Instagram when she was just five year’s old, he doesn’t want to force anything.
Speaking to the Standard ahead of his headline slot at C2C: Country to Country at the London O2 Arena this Friday, he said: “If they happen to love music and a couple of them really do love music and they love to sing and they love to write, I just want to let that come because they want it to come.
“I’m not going to push anything onto them especially the music career because it’s a blessed life, but you’re gone a lot and you know, every time I leave they’re like ‘why are you leaving?’ and I’m like ‘well, this is what you want to do when you’re older so get used to it’.
“It is wild to watch them love music the way that I do. There is really not a cooler feeling in the world than sitting down at a piano with your daughters and having them want to lean chords and melodies on piano and it’s the one good thing that I’m great at in this life and it’s really cool to be able to pass on to my kids.”
Dubbed “the most reliable maker of number one singles in country music” with 20 number one hits in 10 years to his name, he certainly has a wealth of knowledge to draw from.
Asked what advice he would give to those hoping to make it in music, Rhett - who recently released single Simple As A Song from latest album Where We Started - said: “Be so you that it hurts.”
“I think there are a lot of artists who get into this thinking that if they could just write songs like somebody else in the genre is that they can make it for a time, but I think you never really break out of that opening level slot until you become ultimately you and make an undeniable lane and path for yourself.
“I think that only comes from 100% being the artist that you want to be,” he added.
“It’s a hard thing to do because you really just want to have hits to get your name on the map. But at the end of the day if you’re just kind of copying what other people are doing then you’re only going to be b-level version of that artist so I just think take exactly what you want to say and do it to the fullest.”
