NashvilleGab - Country music news and Nashville celebrity gossip

Rascal Flatts' Jay DeMarcus gets his own radio show (press release)

Jay DeMarcus, the bassist and background vocalist for vocal group Rascal Flatts, will premiere his own radio program on Big Machine Radio on Clear Channel's iHeartRadio premiering June 28 at 5 pm ET. "The Jay DeMarcus Show: Live From Flatts Shack" will feature special guests and stories from the road during the 60-minute weekly show.

"I'm very excited for the opportunity to have my own radio show! It's going to be fun to have the forum to discuss whatever I want to, without two other rascals constantly interrupting me!" DeMarcus said jokingly.

In the inaugural show, DeMarcus welcomes guests Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen and hit songwriter James Slater. DeMarcus' wife, CMT correspondent Allison DeMarcus, will join the program each week for the show's entertainment reports.

Karaoke winner gets chance to sing at Rascal Flatts concert

Not many people get the chance to go from singing karaoke for fun to singing with the likes of Rascal Flatts, but one military wife is getting the chance to do just that. 

Kimberly Morlino, 28, of Virginia Beach, Virginia entered the nationwide Flatts Fest Karaoke Challenge by singing a rousing rendition of Black Velvet. After the video hit Facebook, Kimberly won 15% of the more than 35,000 votes and now she gets the chance to sing at Rascal Flatts' concert on Sunday in Virginia Beach. 

Kimberly, whose husband is in the military, told Fox News this morning that she would be singing Home to Me, a song about being a military wife, and then she broke into a few lines of the song. 

Kimberly will take the stage before Rascal Flatts tonight.  

Check out the video after the jump or here if that doesn't work.  

Gary LeVox is a fan of the Shake Weight (sorry for giving you an image you can't get rid of)

Photo via RascalFlatts.com

Shake Weights are just about the most disturbing piece of exercise equipment ever devised....but hey, it works!  At least according to Rascal Flatts' Gary LeVox.  

Gary called into Houston's 100.3 KILT this morning and started out the interview on an interesting note...talking about Shake Weights. 

Gary starts out by being asked what he's wearing.  He's wearing shorts because he's getting ready to hit the gym, which brought up the subject of the Shake Weight.  

I got two of them today.  I'm multitasking.  

When asked about whether they actually work, he says:

You know what, it really does.  I wish it didn't, but it really does.  It firms up everything, man, forearms, biceps, triceps, pecks, shoulders...it's really good.  

Just in case you need a visual of exactly why the Shake Weight is so disturbing, check out this too-funny-not-to-laugh Shake Weight prank.  It's wrong, just wrong, but oh so funny. 

And please, don't watch if you don't like sexually suggestive but totally fake stuff. I don't want to warp those virginal folks out there.    

And be sure to check out Gary's whole interview over on KILT.  He's solo for the interview but it's still a good one.  

PS:  Thanks to Farce the Music, there's now an animated GIF of Gary and a Shake Weight. Gotta love technology.

Rascal Flatts celebrates Changed Tour opening weekend with 45,000 fans (press release)

With over six million career concert tickets sold as one of the hottest touring acts in music today, Rascal Flatts launched their new tour this past weekend with two sold-out concerts. The Farmers Insurance Presents "Changed Tour" kicked off in Hartford, Conn. and Boston, Mass. with 45,000 fans attending. The current nearly 40-city tour features a new production stage and an all-band set up with Little Big Town, Eli Young Band and Edens Edge opening.

"We have the best fans in the world and they made this a really special first weekend for us," said Gary LeVox, lead singer for Rascal Flatts. "We wanted to create something unique for them with the all-band set up and we loved having our friends in Little Big Town, Eli Young and Edens Edge on stage with us to perform a number together."

CMA Fest 2012 - LP Field Photos

Welcome Country Music Fans to Our Beloved City of Nashville, Tennessee

Miranda Lambert

Kellie Pickler

Lady Antebellum

Brad Paisley from the highest seat in the house!

Blake Shelton

Jake Owen

Brantley Gilbert

Carrie Underwood

Randy Houser's Acoustic Set

Eric Church's performance was one of the highlights of the LP Field show. It's about time he was invited to perform on the big stage. Everyone was given lights to sway during "Springsteen" - it looked awesome!

Faith Hill - notice the microphone with a cord...don't see that much anymore

Dierks

Rascal Flatts

Jay DeMarcus taking his daughter's hands and feet on tour with him this summer

Awww, now just how flippin' cute is that?  

Jay DeMarcus is getting ready to head out with the rest of his Rascal Flatts bandmates on their Changed Tour June 15th, which means that he's going to be away from his sweet daughter Madeline Leigh, 18 months, a lot.  To help soften the blow, he had a special guitar designed to take with him. 

The black guitar has pictures of madelin's hands and feet along with "I love you daddy" painted in colorful lettering.  

So creative.  Check out the video of Jay seeing the guitar for the first time below. Madeline is one special little lady to have a daddy who loves her THAT much. 

{via The Country Vibe}

Joe Don Rooney on WhoSay

Rascal Flatts party in New York for Changed

So did anyone head out to the theater last night to watch Rascal Flatts' one-night screening of their concert movie Changed? 

Well Rascal Flatts did, heading out to New York's AMC Theater in Times Squarelast last night to celebrate not only their new concert movie, but also the release of their album 'Changed', which hit stores on April 3.  

The movie included exclusive concert performance footage of the group’s biggest hits and new music from Changed, released in stores this week, as well as in-depth personal interviews with Gary LeVox, Joe Don Rooney and Jay DeMarcus. The movie was presented by NCM Fathom Events, Big Machine Records & AEG Network Live.

There's no word yet if the movie will be released to DVD, although I'm sure it will be.  

Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain still among album heavyweights

Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks may have been out of the spotlight for much of the past decade, but that doesn't mean that they're being outsold by current chart topping artists.  

According to PerezHilton.com, Nielsen SoundScan has spent the last 21 years tracking Billboard album sales and has compiled their list of the best selling albums of the last decade.  

Check out all the country artists who dominated album sales.  Makes a country blogger proud. 

1. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me, 10,797,000 (released February 2002). 
2. Eminem, The Eminem Show, 10,049,000 (May 2002). 
3. Usher, Confessions, 9,968,000 (March 2004). 
4. Adele, 21, 8,090,000 (February 2011). 
5. 50 Cent, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', 8,086,000 (February 2003). 
6. Evanescence, Fallen, 7,619,000 (March 2003). 
7. Nickelback, All The Right Reasons, 7,582,000 (October 2005). 
8. Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts, 7,177,000 (November 2005). 
9. Avril Lavigne, Let Go, 6,782,000 (June 2002). 
10. Taylor Swift, Fearless, 6,514,000 (November 2008). 
11. Nelly, Nellyville, 6,488,000 (June 2002). 
12. Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway, 6,219,000 (November 2004). 
13. Green Day, American Idiot, 6,056,000 (September 2004). 
14. Dixie Chicks, Home, 6,041,000 (August 2002). 
15. Mariah Carey, The Emancipation Of Mimi, 5,964,000 (April 2008). 
16. Josh Groban, Closer, 5,960,000 (November 2003). 
17. Linkin Park, Meteora, 5,913,000 (March 2003).
18. OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, 5,702,000 (September 2003).
19. Josh Groban, Noel, 5,446,000 (October 2007).
20. Shania Twain, Up!, 5,409,000 (November 2004). 
21. 50 Cent, The Massacre, 5,286,000 (March 2005). 
22. Eminem, Encore, 5,282,000 (November 2004).
23. Rascal Flatts, Feels Like Today, 5,230,000 (September 2004). 
24. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, 5,175,000 (October 2006). 
25. Guns N' Roses, Greatest Hits, 5,161,000 (March 2004). 

{via Perez/Yahoo Music}

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Rascal Flatts announce "The American Band Tour" (press release)

Apparently Rascal Flatts are a little tired of all these darn Australians - we're looking at you Keith Urban - and Canadians coming over here and touring their little foreign hearts out because the boys have decided to launch the very non-foreign-sounding The American Band Tour brought to you by equally home-grown-sounding Farmers Insurance. 

 

The tour will begin this summer and will feature opening acts Little Big Town, Eli Young Band, and Edens Edge.  

Check out the press release below for more info and tour dates....

    As one of the hottest touring acts in any genre, Country music supergroup Rascal Flatts announced today they will launch a brand new tour beginning this summer, Farmers Insurance presents “The American Band Tour.” The tour will feature an all band set-up with Little Big Town, Eli Young Band and Edens Edge opening. The shows will begin in Hartford, Conn., on June 15 at the Comcast Theatre. Please check www.rascalflatts.com for up to date tour information.

Rascal Flatts announce details of new studio album - "Changed" (press release)

I have a major love/hate relationship with press releases - on one hand, they're easy peasy to post and a great way to get quick info to you guys.  On the other hand, they're generally rather boring and I've always sort of stayed away from them because most of the other sites will post the info.  Mind you, that's not a bad thing, I've just always preferred to use my time posting the oddball and out-in-left-field stories so that I have something different than everyone else since I figure most visitors to my site are like me and visit multiple country sites to get their news and will find the info elsewhere. Besides, I get bored easily and have a hard time rewriting press releases to make them sound original.  

Well you know what?  Screw it!  I'm going the easy route and from now on will be posting press releases.  I'm going to just post them pretty much in their entirety how they show up in my inbox with a little statement in the post title so that you guys know when the info is coming from a press release and not actually from me.  I figure this way I can get the info out to you guys quicky with little effort (shocker, I'm lazy on occasion) and I can save my brain power (ha ha) for the stories that I actually enjoy writing that you may or may not find everywhere else on the web.

So this one's about Rascal Flatts and their new album Changed.      

Country music supergroup Rascal Flatts announced today that they will release CHANGED, their highly-anticipated seventh studio album, on April 3. Award-winning musician Dann Huff co-produced the new project with Flatts.

CHANGED is poised to follow the success of their first Big Machine Records album release, NOTHING LIKE THIS, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Country albums sales chart, making Flatts one of only four country acts to debut six consecutive studio albums at #1. NOTHING LIKE THIS went on to become a platinum-selling album, featuring two #1 hits including the certified platinum “I Won’t Let Go” and the gold-certified “Easy” (with pop sensation Natasha Bedingfield).

Since their musical debut in 2000, the band has sold over 21 million albums, 25 million digital downloads and delivered 13 #1 singles to the top of the charts. Rascal Flatts is the most awarded Country group of the past decade, earning over 40 trophies from the ACAs, ACMs, AMAs, CMAs, People's Choice Awards and more. As one of the hottest-selling acts on tour in any genre, they’ve sold over 6 million concert tickets, and counting. Currently, the band is performing across the country on their Thaw Out Tour, which earned a slot on CMT's "Top Tours of 2012." For tour dates and album updates, visit www.rascalflatts.com. 

Related articles

• Rascal Flatts Just Getting Started (nashville.com)
• Rascal Flatts Debut "Banjo" at Country Radio (countrymusictattletale.com)
• Rascal Flatts "Easy" Goes Gold (gotcountryonline.com)