Father’s Day is this Sunday (6/16). See what Country Stars like Thomas Rhett, Keith Urban, Carly Pearce and more say about their dads and being dads themselves.
Keith Urban may have called Australia home growing up, but thanks to his dad, he also had a taste of “The Motor City”:
“My dad used to love driving, just driving on the weekends. Putting the family in the car and going driving. He always had American cars, pretty much. You know, it was the one odd thing about our…well, I’m sure not the only thing odd about our family but…The one unusual part about our family in Australia is that my dad loved American cars, and we always had Pontiacs or Chevys or Lincoln, or any number of cars over the years. So, yeah, that love of cars still runs deep with me.”
Lady Antebellum‘s Charles Kelley has picked up a lot of his dad’s characteristics over the years, and he says that’s made him into the person he is today:
“I always have seen a lot of my dad in myself and everybody in my family has said that. I love to work. I definitely got a lot of his work ethic and his stubbornness to think he can solve everything. My dad always was like, ‘Let me do it. Watch how we do this. Here’s how we’re gonna solve this.’ And I definitely appreciate getting some of that from him. Little things too, I don’t know. Probably annoying things too that I’ve gotten from him but we’re very much alike and Ward (Charles’ son) is gonna be just like me, just very stubborn. Stubborn workaholics.”
Thomas Rhett has learned a lot of valuable things since becoming a dad, including how to get less sleep and still be productive.
“I never thought that I could exist on less sleep. I’ve always loved my sleep. College made me love sleep and then when I had kids it was kind of a huge shock going from waking up at 10 o’clock in the morning to like getting up multiple times in the night and then realizing that you can survive on that the next day and you can go to work and you can still sing songs. I learned how to be more patient for sure. My patience, not that it was thin before I had kids, but it can’t be thin at all when you do have kids and so I feel like I’ve grown in many, many ways as a dad and continue to grow every day.”
When it came to raising his three daughters, Alan Jackson says he tried his best not to be a pushy parent:
“We let them live and be their own way. I’m not stern with them. You know, I’m funny and light, and try to give them guidance and let them live and learn their own ways. And that’s something, I think, my parents did. It was accidental, but that’s what they did.”
Brantley Gilbert knows the importance of passing wisdom down to his son, Barrett. However, it’s the lessons he’s learned from being Barrett’s dad that he truly values:
“They teach you things and remind you of how important the little things are and his discovery of different things just reminds me to take kinda everything in and don’t take anything for granted. Every second, every moment I have with him, it’s a constant reminder to make the best of it.”
Brantley says his dad loves being a grandfather and tries to be with his grandson, Barrett, as much as possible:
“My dad lives right next to us and he comes every morning before Amber is ready for him. He’ll like just show up. ‘Where’s he at?’ ‘He’s asleep. He’ll be up in about 10 minutes.’ ‘Alright, I’ll wait.’ God almighty.”
Friday (6/14), in honor of Father’s Day, Brantley will release a new song he wrote for his son called “Man Who Hung the Moon,” which will be on his next album.
Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus is grateful for his dad’s tough love:
“My dad said to me, ‘Son, you’ll never amount to anything,’ and I held onto that all of my life. No, you know it is… My dad was pretty hard on me growing up and I’m grateful that he was. He was one of those guys that always pushed me to be better and do better and I learned a lot from him and I’m thankful to have the opportunity to try to be as crappy to my kids as he was to me. But thank you for bringing up some painful past. That’s really sweet of you.”
Midland definitely sees their dads in themselves:
Cameron Duddy: “There’s things that I’ll do that my dad definitely did.”
Mark Wystrach: “Do you blame your kids for anything that goes missing or broken?”
Cameron: “No but …”
Mark: “My dad used to blame me. Anything that went wrong at the house. My brother and I would get blamed for it.”
Cameron: “Okay, I blame Harper for that. But I make this face at Kit when I’m irritated and it’s just like, ‘Oh my god I’m like completely turning into my dad,”. It’s very trippy.”
Carly Pearce credits her dad with being a vessel for her country music dreams:
“I talk a lot about the fact that my mom moved, but my dad always allowed me to go and funded all my trips, and took care of my sick grandfather when I wanted to go to Dollywood, and made sure that my mom and I could do that. So he’s always been the vessel to be able to make my dreams come true, and my parents have never told me that I couldn’t do something. So I just have to say, this would not be anything without you dad.”
Justin Moore “boo-hoos” more since becoming a dad:
“I’m a pretty emotional, sensitive guy and always have been, really. I’ll cry watching a documentary or whatever. So that’s never changed, except it probably has heightened that. I’m probably more so, especially if ESPN does all these 30 for 30s and think I was watching one of them it was about a kid that all he wanted to do was meet the coach of some football team or something like that and I boo hooed.”
Riley Green is grateful his dad’s sense of humor rubber off on him:
“So me and my dad are very different in a lot of ways. We butt heads a lot when I was in that realm of playing music in bars all night and sleepin’ until about 2:00 in the afternoon because he’s one of those that gets up at the crack of dawn and works all day long. And I didn’t get that bone, for whatever reason. So that gene skipped me, but one thing that we definitely have in common and his dad was my granddaddy Burford, that was always painting and writing poems and really helped me was singin’. My dad’s pretty witty. He’s one of those guys is always quick to make a joke and I think I probably got a lot of my sense of humor from him and his kind of cutting up. And I think that probably adds a lot to my success musically because you know me, not being one of the type of guys to sit down and just blow people away with my vocals I had to kind of cut up and just try to entertain everybody in other ways.”
