When Jason Aldean was just getting started, he was invited by the reigning country music superstar group, Rascal Flatts, to join them on not one but two tours. The invitation was a gift to Aldean, who knew next to nothing about what it was like to be on the road, and had the opportunity to take notes from an established act. Now that Aldean is now headlining his own arenas and large venues, he hasn’t forgotten the way Rascal Flatts helped him jumpstart his career.
“I’d say, for me, the people I learned the most from was Rascal Flatts,” Aldean revealed on The Ty Bentli Show. “They took me out on my first major tour, and I was out with them – they took me out for two years in a row. The first year, I was the opener, and it was me, Blake Shelton and Rascal Flatts, and the next year it was just me and Flatts. Those guys were just great to me.
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“Gary [LeVox] was the one that I kind of really hit it off with,” he continued. “Every night I was out there watching these guys, and just learned what it was like to tour and kind of do it on that level, because, at the time, those guys were as big as it got. I learned a lot.”
Aldean learned about how to headline a show, but he also learned what to do off-stage as well, especially as his own star power increased.
“I learned more from those guys than I did from anybody else,” the 42-year-old said. “I think from them it was just how to run the organization, partly. Who to have in place, who does what.”
“I don’t know if it’s advice necessarily but you’re just around,” he continued. “You hear those guys talk. It’s things that they would encounter during the day, you hear. Even after that, I kept in touch with them, and if there was ever something I had a question about, I would call one of them up, and talk to them about whatever.”
Aldean, who tries to watch his own opening acts via video when he is on tour, never forgot what LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney taught him.
“It was fun,” Aldean recalled. “Those guys were great, show-wise, how they put on their show. I was a fan, so I think as an artist, you can never stop learning, so I was always up there, watching what they were doing, and I learned a lot from them.”
Aldean will kick off his own We Back Tour next year, with Morgan Wallen and Riley Green serving as his opening acts. Find dates at JasonAldean.com.
Photo Credit: Getty / Matt Winkelmeyer
