Kelsea Ballerini Thankful for Time on the Road With Rascal Flatts, ‘Stoked’ For Thomas Rhett Tour
"I love going on the road with people that I’m a fan of," Ballerini gushed.
When Kelsea Ballerini hit the road to tour with Rascal Flatts for their Rhythm & Roots Tour this summer, no one quite knew the impact that the summer would have on all of them. The tour recently wrapped and left all of the artists feeling rejuvenated and refreshed about life on the road.
“I think, I’ve learned to appreciate where we are in life a little bit more,” Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus said recently about having Ballerini and Chris Lane on the road. “I mean that to say they’ve got such a wide-eyed, thrilled to be here kind of excitement every single night. And after years of being on the road and doing this, it can become mundane sometimes. You come to the same sheds, you go to the same cities. One of the great things is to see how genuinely pumped up they are about being here. It’s renewed my energy and my excitement for being here too.”
The feeling is mutual for Ballerini, who grew up as a fan of the Flatts, having attended many of their shows back in the day.
“They’re the nicest guys, like the nicest guys. After the shows, we would like go on each other’s buses and play each other our new music that’s going to come out. We would just get pep talks,” she recently told Sounds Like Nashville and other members of the media. “They really took me and Chris under their wing, they were so great. But, I will say, I have to go into a different part of my brain. I am never going to be able to be in the same room as Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, whoever it is and completely let go of that fan girl that’s always going to be in me because it’s always going to be in me.”
The “Yeah Boy” singer will certainly take their pep talks out on the road with her next year when she opens up for Thomas Rhett’s 2017 Home Team Tour.
“He is king right now. He is killing it,” she said. “I was stoked that he asked me. I love going on the road with people that I’m a fan of. That’s been the coolest thing so far is getting to perform and introduce myself to people that don’t know me yet and getting to sing my songs for people that do and then going out to watch a show from an artist that I’m a fan of and getting re-inspired. I did that with Rascal Flatts all summer and now I get to do it with Thomas. I’m a huge fan of him. His wife is everything. I’m stoked.”
Before heading out on the road with Rhett, however, Ballerini stay on the road this fall for her headlining The First Time Tour, which kicks off November 1o in Washington, D.C.
