RASCAL FLATTS FACTS
Genre: Country
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio.
Albums: Rascal Flatts (2000), Melt (2002), Feels Like Today (2004), Me and My Gang (2006), Still Feels Good (2007), Greatest Hits Volume 1 (2008), Unstoppable (2009), Nothing Like This (2010) and Changed (2012).
Awards: 8 Academy of Country Music Awards, 1 Grammy Award, 10 CMT Awards, 7 Country Music Association Awards.
Hits: "Prayin' for Daylight," "These Days," "I Melt," "Bless the Broken Road," "Fast Cars and Freedom," "What Hurts the Most," "My Wish," "Stand," "Here Comes Goodbye."
Other: During one of the band's early gigs, audience members asked for the band's name but they didn't have one. One man in the audience shouted out that his garage band's name was "Rascal Flatts," and the name stuck!
Like many performers of their ilk, Rascal Flatts got their start in the hyper-competitive musical world of Nashville, Tenn., where second cousins Gary LeVox and Jay DeMarcus worked as musicians for a number of bands. During the '90s, DeMarcus was the leader of a band called Chely Wright's Band, and one night when their guitarist couldn't show up, future lead guitarist Joe Don Rooney stepped in. Soon after, the trio began playing together and sending demos off to record producers. They finally got the attention of Lyric Street in 1999 and signed a recording contract.
From the outset, Rascal Flatts' self-titled debut album was a rousing success, buoyed by their first single, "Prayin' For Daylight," which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard country charts. Other singles, like "This Everyday Love," "While You Loved Me" and "I'm Movin' On," also became top-10 hits and helped them achieve critical acclaim throughout the country music scene.
Hot off the success of their first album, Rascal Flatts avoided the sophomore slump with their album, Melt, which gave the band its first No. 1 single with the track "These Days." The band's third album, Feels Like Today, was also a runaway success with two No. 1 hits: "Bless the Broken Road" and "Fast Cars and Freedom." "Bless the Broken Road" won the Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Country Song and signaled that the group had truly become country music royalty.
The group released a series of critically acclaimed albums over the course of the 2000s and scored another major success in this decade with 2012's Unchanged. With one of the best live shows in the business and millions of records sold, Rascall Flatts has become a prominent feature in the country music landscape and should remain a fixture in the genre for years to come.