It’s Summertime and the living is easy…

This is the favorite season for many of your favorite country music artists…

Photo Credit: John Shearer

Thomas Rhett loves summertime, and is not a fan of the cold – not even on his bus! “I definitely pep up when the sun’s out. I hate being cold. When I’m on the bus even, I’m always the guy that walks up on the bus and turns off all the air conditioners. So that the air isn’t blowing in my face. But yeah the sunshine definitely peps me up. I don’t know why I’m like that but I’m a big beach guy. I just like to be able to do anything and everything outdoors. And when it’s not sunny it just kind of makes it worse.”

Photo Credit: Tyre Grannermann

Maren Morris needs a good summer after last year, “What I love most about summertime, I think is just being outside. Through the pandemic. We’ve all been so cooped up, so I’m definitely excited to go and sit on a nice patio, have a drink. Yeah, all of the things I feel like I’m just going to spend as much time as I can outdoors. Because yeah, I need some vitamin D.”

Photo Credit: Allister Ann

Kenny Chesney says that his place to relax during summer involves water and warm weather,“I can tell you that usually it has to do with water and a boat. I feel very settled on the ocean. I don’t know why, I always have. I’ve always been drawn to it. I feel that any place where I can be still is the best place to be creative. But I tell you, I do crave being still because I have been moving for years. Like the Willie (Nelson) song, ‘Still is Still Moving to Me (laughter).’ So I search for those places. But usually more times than not, it’s got a lot to do with being in an environment that involves water, involves a boat, involves some friends, maybe a cold beer or two, and some really good food. And great music!”

Photo Credit: Matthew Berinato

Drew Green shares a memory from summers when he was growing up, “Almost every year me and my family go down to Center Hill Lake and take the boat out. We tie up in a creek for the weekend with friends and have a blast.  You can’t beat that.”

Photo Courtesy of Sugarland

Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush share their favorite parts of summer,
Kristian, “I love it when it’s warm (I do too). I have to say, a beach makes me very happy, a swimming pool. I’m just a water person. So you can put me near anything, even a lake, I’m a very happy guy … a bathtub full of water. No, it makes me happy to be in water.”

Jennifer, “I love the summer. I love the warmth. Being from the swamp of South Georgia, it’s just like, if I can’t walk out in a tank top it’s cold. There’s only two gears.”

Photo Courtesy of Callie Twisselman

Callie Twisselman shares one of the things she loved doing during the summer when she was growing up,  “One of my favorite memories during the summertime Is going to my hometown’s California Mid State Fair, grabbing a corn dog and watching my favorite artist’s concerts. It always inspired me to keep going with my career.”

Photo Credit: Matthew Berinato

Jameson Rodgers shares that his summers growing up meant sports…and bugs, “As a kid growing up in Mississippi, the summers consisted of mostly baseball. Baseball is my life and pretty much anything outside getting beat up by the biggest mosquitoes in the world. Yeah, so it was always a good time.”

Photo Credit: Matthew Berinato

Matt Stell recalls his summers as a kid meant a lot of outdoor activities, “When I was growing up I spent my summers outside fishing with with my dad and my my great uncles and things like that. Also spent a lot of time out in the hay field. Doing that kind of stuff cutting hay and baling hay, working for my dad as well. I’m out in the summertime when I wasn’t in school and then playing AU basketball. I did a lot of that travel basketball in the summer. So yeah, that was a lot of the activities that kept me pretty busy and luckily kept me with a little bit of money in my pocket to buy some gas to waste it driving up and down a bunch of dirt roads.”

Photo Credit: Allister Ann

Carly Pearce loves summer – but not really when it comes to performing outside in the hot weather, “Literally, the worst feeling in the world is to have all of your make-up on and your eyelashes and all of your hair, and you get to the stage and you’re already sweating. It’s awful. Honestly, I run a lot in the heat, so I don’t have a lot of issues. I always have water and I stay very hydrated. And I get proper sleep and I eat right, which I actually think really does filter into being able to handle heat. I almost feel suffocated in my own skin from make-up and hair and all of that.  So, literally, I run straight from the stage to the bus. I take like three showers a day and always try to take my makeup off because it is like embedded in my face.“

Photo Credit: Remedy Creative

Mitch Rossell share a memorable moment from a summer when he was growing up that he may not want to repeat, “I spent most of the summer with my dad as a kid, and we had some close friends that had horses so we rode all the time. One time, my buddy and I were out in the pasture and he told me to let go of the reins, so I did, not thinking much about it. That horse went from 0-60 in about 3 seconds , I’ll never forget that!”

Photo Credit: Robby Klein

The guys in Rascal Flatts share where you can find them during the summer when they have time off…

Gary LeVox – “You’ll find me, I’ll be on my farm planting food plots for the upcoming deer season, so I’ll be out there working the dirt and taking soil samples and getting ready to plant beans and corn and clover.”

Jay DeMarcus – “You’ll find me by my pool grilling burgers and dogs and swimming with my kids and my wife.”

Joe Don Rooney – “You know what, summertime for me, it’s all about golf. I mean I love golf because all the major championships are coming up after Augusta, and yeah, you’ll find me on the golf course.”

Photo Credit: Matthew Berinato

Jaden Hamilton didn’t need a lot to make it the best summers ever when he was a kid, “Fishing, wakeboarding, cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. All the simple stuff. It was really simple but really memorable to me.”

Photo Credit: Tristan Cusick

Mitchell Tenpenny remembers summers when he was younger meant, fun, bumps, bruises and music, “My summers as a kid was pretty cool. My uncle would come in town from New York City and he would take care of us because my parents worked. And he taught us a lot of music. We go outside a lot, play outside, you know, get cuts get scraped up, break some bones, but also he teach us music. And before we could go outside, he made me learn a song on the piano. And I think that has a lot to do with why I still play today, and why I do what I do for a living. But more than anything, I just wanted to get outside and play and that was really, you know, the motivation to get out there and do it.”

Photo Credit: John Shearer

The guys in Florida Georgia Line share that summers when they were younger usually meant being near water…

Brian Kelley – “I grew up on the river for about half my life and ten minutes from the beach, and grew up going to North Carolina, the lakes and stuff. So the water played a huge place in my life.”

Tyler Hubbard – “I actually lived on the beach a couple of years of my childhood and if I wasn’t on the beach, I was fishing somewhere you know doing something. So, we love being on the water, whether it’s wake boarding or fishing or just riding around in a boat, whatever it is. Nothing better than that.”

Photo credit: Harper Smith

Ryan Hurd recalls the two main things that took up time in the summer for his when he was younger, “I grew up on a lake in West Michigan and so I spent most every day waterskiing and hanging out and having bonfires and also spent a lot of time playing baseball. We loved sports growing up and played a lot of baseball every summer and have a lot of friends that I still talked to today that I was playing ball with. So yeah, waterskiing and baseball.”

Photo Courtesy of Melanie Meriney

Melanie Meriney shares that one of her favorite summer memories was on stage, “One of my favorite summer memories growing up in Pittsburgh was going downtown each summer for the regatta boat race festival. The full circle moment came after I had moved away when I came back to play the main stage on the billing with Journey. Definitely a cool hometown show!”

Headline Photo Credit:
Carly & Thomas credit John Shearer
Kenny credit Allister Ann