Why There Are 14 Writers on Thomas Rhett’s ‘Vacation’

The music industry in Nashville is known for its love of co-writes, but that wasn’t the main reason Thomas Rhett decided to throw 14 writers onto his track, “Vacation.”

Why There Are 14 Writers on Thomas Rhett’s ‘Vacation’
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images for dcp

The music industry in Nashville is known for its love of co-writes. Hardly anyone in Music City goes off on their own to write and create songs alone due to all of the talented people who make music here. But that wasn’t the main reason Thomas Rhett decided to throw 14 writers onto his track, “Vacation.”

With all of the recent controversies over copyrighted material and music stealing, Rhett wanted to keep himself safe from any issues. Noting that his tropical-inspired single sounded quite similar to another famous track, he took the careful route and asked the writers of War’s “Low Rider” if they would like to be credited on his album for the similarities.

“When you look at somebody like Pharrell and Robin Thicke getting sued because of a drum pattern, it makes you scared to death to put something that remotely sounds like something.  So when we finished writing ‘Vacation,’ you couldn’t deny that the first thing you thought of was ‘Low Rider’.  So the best thing to do in these situations is just to go straight to the people that wrote that song and be like, ‘Hey we wanna make you cowriters on this song,’” explained Rhett.

Adding those guys to the already-long list that helped out on “Vacation” made for a pretty large group of collaborators overall, as Rhett pointed out.

“So there’s like seven people in that band,” he said. “ So seven times the other- and I wrote that song with two LA guys, so there were three of us in the room, but there was also four other ones that had a hand in building that track.  So, I mean, no one’s going to make any money off that song, but it’s one of my favorite, most fun songs on the record.”

Rhett’s new single, “Vacation,” off his album, Tangled Up, is currently being played on country radio. Fans can see the song and many others performed live as Rhett is opening up for Jason Aldean on the Six String Circus Tour this summer.