Earlier this year, Rascal Flatts announced that they would be embarking on a Farewell Tour after 20 years together. While the trek hasn’t yet started due to the coronavirus pandemic, band members Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney know that there will come a day when they are no longer making music together. Speaking to PopCulture.com and other media last month, the trio reflected on what they’ll miss the most about being a band, from the superficial to the serious.
“Getting good tables at restaurants, quite frankly, and a discount at Disney World with a VIP pass. Some of the perks that go along with that are just amazing,” DeMarcus joked before sharing that what he will truly miss the most is the bond and experiences he shared with his bandmates that no one else could ever understand. “I’m going to miss the times that we shared together that no one knows about, that no one sees,” he said. “The looks at each other on the stage, the moments that we look at each other and we know that we’re at our best. The moments that we’re riding on a bus together somewhere and early in the morning on the way to some Today show or Good Morning America at 4:30 to soundcheck.”
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“The time in the trenches that no one knows about that the three of us have shared together that have bounded us together for life is what I will miss the most,” he continued. “You can’t make up for time spent together. No one can do that, and we’ve seen the best of each other. We’ve seen the worst of each other.” LeVox named touring as the thing he’ll miss, while Rooney added, “We miss it right now, in a way we never dreamed of.”
Before their official farewell, whenever that may be, Rascal Flatts will release their upcoming EP, How They Remember You, on July 31, and their tour is still set to take place, though the trio isn’t sure when that will be. “We’ve held each other through the saddest of times, through love and loss, and it’s a brotherhood,” DeMarcus said. “It has always been a brotherhood, and the day that we don’t have that anymore, and we can’t just reach out to each other so easily, is going to be very, very, sad and heartbreaking for me.”
He added that when the three are “old men together someday sitting around on a porch,” they’re going to have a “heck of a legacy to look back on and realize that we were a part of something very, very special at a very, very special time in country music, where the face of country music literally started to shift and change.”
