Thomas Rhett recalled a “wild” moment he shared with George Strait during a recent interview.
The country superstar and “Slow Down Summer” singer spoke with Audacy’s Katie Neal of Katie & Company on her podcast, Superstar Power Hour, and shared what happened the first time he met Strait.
“You’ve obviously had a very successful career. You grew up around a lot of country artists. When was the last time you had a cool, ‘pinch me’ moment where you thought ‘what is happening right now, what is life’?” Neal asked Rhett during the interview.
“I don’t know, I’m trying to think,” Rhett responded before mentioning his first meeting with Strait. “I would say it was like three years ago,” he continued. “We were at the ACM Honors event here in Nashville. There were a few of us new artists but mostly it was icons, and they wanted to do a big group picture. And so, I was literally sitting next to Alan Jackson and George Strait was behind me, and Dolly Parton was on the other side of me. I was like, ‘This is wild,’ you know, because I had never met George.”
“That is so wild,” Neal agreed.
Rhett then explained how he introduced himself to Strait and that they’d had a brief conversation.
“I went up to introduce myself, and he said, I can’t even remember what he said, but it wasn’t a lot,” Rhett said. “It was very brief, and uh, I was just like, ‘Man, this is the king,’ you know? It was pretty wild to get to meet George in person,” he continued.
“That’s incredible,” Neal responded.
In addition to discussing his “pinch me” moment when meeting Strait, Rhett said he hopes to record and release his seventh studio album, Country Again (Side B) this year.
Rhett previously discussed how his current album, Where We Started was an unexpected project back in January with Country Now.
“We were out at my farm, and [the song, ‘Where We Started’] for some reason spurred a lot of other songs that kind of followed suit with it,” he explained. “And, when we got in the studio and recorded this song, it kind of started becoming a different project,” he said. Rhett then ultimately decided to delay Country Again (Side B) as a result.
Rhett has enjoyed much success with Where We Started, earning his 19th No. 1 hit with the album’s lead single, “Slow Down Summer.”
Rhett also recently performed the album’s title track, “Where We Started” on the season 20 finale of American Idol alongside collaborator Katy Perry.
