What the Guys in Rascal Flatts Wish They’d Done Differently “Just Slow Down, Take a Deep Breath and Take It All In”

When a new country artist or band has some kind of overnight success, it’s usually just as much of a surprise to them as it is to the brand new fans.

And when that happened for Rascal Flatts in 2000, when their debut single “Prayin’ for Daylight” was released, it was almost too much for the trio to take in properly.

“In the mid 2000’s there, when we were on a real hot streak and we were winning awards and seven Vocal Group of the Year awards in a row and having number ones and selling millions of records, I don’t think it really dawned on any of us what rarefied air we were actually in at the time,” the band’s Jay DeMarcus said in a recent radio interview. “And being able to fully take that in and enjoy it and slow down enough to look around and go, ’Gosh this is the chance of a lifetime that we may never see again. I wish I could go back and tell ourselves, say ‘Hey, while you’re in the middle of this ride, just slow down, take a deep breath and take it all in because it really is pretty special.’”

DeMarcus says he wishes they would have spent a little more time just enjoying the ride while they were on it. “We were working so hard and at such a hurried pace that a lot of times it was tough to really enjoy the fruits of our labor and what we were living in the middle of and just how special those times were,” he said.

Rascal Flatts’ latest single — potentially their last as a band before they pursue solo projects in the new year — is about the legacy you leave behind you when you go. The introspective ballad was penned by another trio of Nashville’s finest: Marc Beeson, Josh Osborne and Allen Shamblin.