Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard Explains Reason Behind New Elephant Tattoo

Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard recently showed off an elephant tattoo, covering most of his forearm. While the elaborate design is cool, Hubbard’s reasons for getting it go much deeper than just wanting new ink.

“That represents a lot,” Hubbard explained to PopCulture.com at a recent media event. “Elephants are super intellectual animals and really, honestly I just learn more and more about them every time I go to Africa. They’re truly inspiring, the way they – basically their values and their morals as animals and the way they love and respect and have a community and a family, and just their power. They’re just so majestic and honestly, it’s also just a reminder to preserve and take care of our environment and our world and kind of that side of things.

“It’s all a big circle and everything works together, so when we start taking things for granted, even like the trees and the animals and stuff like that, you know it starts to affect our world,” he continued. “I’ve just learned a lot; traveling and being on safari over the last few years has just been pretty eye opening. It’s just a little reminder of a lot of things, but we also just, as simple as can be, we just love elephants, and everything that they represent.”

Hubbard and his duo partner, Brian Kelley, just opened up about their evolution in country music. In spite of working on their fourth studio album, and breaking chart records with their “Meant to Be” collaboration with Bebe Rexha, the guys admit they still don’t feel like they have secured their spot in country music.

“It never gets stale or complacent because we still feel like the new guys, in a sense of that excitement and what it means,” Hubbard told PEOPLE. “We love country music, period, we love country radio, we love our fans and it’s cool when all of that works.”

FGL will head to Las Vegas in December for their residency at Zappos Theater in Planet Hollywood, where they will be joined by Canaan Smith and Mason Ramsey, two rising stars who Hubbard and Kelley hope to invest in, and help them in the same manner they were helped.

“We’ve had a lot of great mentors that literally have helped us from when we would show up with paint all over our bodies, all over our clothes, trying to figure out what life was and how to write songs and make ends meet,” Kelley explained. “And we’re more determined than ever to help people that were in our spot. It’s cool to be that because everybody needs a little help, a little mentor and you know, we’re always trying to learn something too from somebody.”

Find a list of all of Florida Georgia Line‘s upcoming shows by visiting their website.

Photo Credit: Getty images/C Flanigan