Rascal Flatts

It all begins when the lights go down. For Gary LeVox, Joe Don Rooney and Jay DeMarcus, it has been that way since they were playing for a handful of people in a club in Nashville's Printers Alley. These days, of course, they play for more than 10,000 screaming fans a night, drawn by state-of-the-art production and sound, and by spectacular vocal harmonies in service to an ever-expanding catalogue of hits. In between, it was the magic of those performances that catapulted Rascal Flatts into the front ranks of entertainers in all genres.

By any measure, Rascal Flatts is in elite territory. In 2005, the group earned its third consecutive ACM and CMA Vocal Group of the Year awards, and added Billboard and R&R Artist of the Year trophies as well. The trio also picked up its first three Grammy nominations, and their "Bless The Broken Road" received the Grammy for Country Song of the Year. Rascal Flatts was the most played artist on country radio in 2005, spending 10 weeks at No. 1 on the radio singles charts.

In addition, their Feels Like Today CD was the year's best-selling country album, with sales of more than 2.5 million in 2005 alone, according to Soundscan. It finished at No. 7 in all genres. In less than five years on the country music scene, the group's CD sales have soared past eight million, with Feels Like Today at quadruple platinum, and Melt and Rascal Flatts both at double platinum.

As for the touring—the hub on which their wheel of success turns—last year's Here's to You tour broke attendance records and took the Rascal Flatts show to 750,000 people in 70 cities, making it the No. 2 tour in all of country music and earning a Breakthrough Touring Act of the Year award from Billboard. The Me and My Gang 2006 tour, which kicked off February 2, promises to be even more spectacular, with state-of-the-art set design by Bruce Rogers of Tribe Inc., best known for work with Madonna, Sting and the Dave Matthews Band.

The album for which the tour is named—Me And My Gang—represents yet another sonic step forward. Recorded largely in the spring and summer of 2005, the project was delayed by public demand for a fourth single from their Feels Like Today CD, the highly acclaimed "Skin (Sarabeth)."

Me and My Gang finds Rascal Flatts again drawing on many of Nashville's finest writers, including Jeffrey Steele, Neil Thrasher, Tony Mullins, Wendell Mobley, Jason Sellers and Monty Powell. The group has also co-written three of the CD's songs, with Joe Don contributing "Cool Thing," Jay "To Make Her Love Me" and all three "Pieces." They continue to up their level of musical involvement, with Jay playing bass throughout and Joe Don playing every guitar part on the record.

Led off by the Jeffrey Steele/Steve Robson-penned smash, "What Hurts The Most," Me and My Gang finds the trio yet again reaching new heights. "Working with Dan Huff (producer) brought us to a new level," says LeVox. "Collectively we feel this is the strongest album we've done to date," says Rooney. "Lyrically, melodically and emotionally this record took us to another place. We are excited to bring this new music to the fans."

Those fans have watched the rise to superstardom of the group that got its start well over a decade ago in Columbus, Ohio, where second cousins Gary and Jay learned to love music during frequent family jam sessions. Jay took his voice and instrumental skills (he plays guitar, bass, keyboards, mandolin, and others) to Nashville in 1992, earning his first record deal as part of a Christian group called East to West. In 1997 he finally convinced a reluctant Gary to leave behind his job with the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and follow his musical dreams as well.

Jay met Joe Don when both landed jobs in Chely Wright's band. Joe Don had grown up in tiny Picher, Oklahoma, gleaning influences from his brothers and sisters, whose tastes ran the gamut of musical styles. As he and Jay worked in Wright's band, Jay and Gary were working in a Printer's Alley club with a part-time guitarist. When he couldn't make it one night, Jay invited Joe Don to sit in. A few bars into the first song they sang, they knew they had something special. They recorded some demos, which caught the favorable attention of Lyric Street Senior VP of A&R Doug Howard.

With their first album out, they hit the road hard, gaining thousands of new fans and opening for the likes of Alan Jackson, Jo Dee Messina, and Toby Keith. Their star rose dramatically from the outset and reached dizzying heights with the release of "I'm Movin' On." The milestones kept coming. They played the Grand Ole Opry, appeared on the soundtrack of We Were Soldiers, and recorded "Walk the Llama Llama," a song penned by Sting for The Emperor's New Groove soundtrack. Along the way, they were the subjects of two one-hour live television concerts and were given the 2001 CMA Horizon Award and ACM's New Vocal Group of the Year.

The hit songs and relentless work ethic drove them inexorably toward platinum status and a host of awards and milestones. Their debut CD was one of only three million-selling debuts in half a decade, and it spawned four Top 10 singles. They toured with Brooks & Dunn and Kenny Chesney, and headlined their own tours: CMT Most Wanted Live tour, 2003 I Melt and 2004 and 2005's Here's to You tour. They received the 2002 CMA Horizon Award, the ACM's Song of the Year award for "I'm Movin' On," and the CMT Flameworthy Favorite Group or Duo Award for the "These Days" video.

They view all their successes as spurs to further creative excellence. "When we started our career," says DeMarcus "there's no way we could have dreamed this. We've surpassed our goals in just three albums. We are humbled by country radio for playing our songs and for the support of Lyric Street Records and our amazing fans."

As they have grown musically, they have continued to reach personal milestones. Gary is married, with two daughters, Brittany, 6, and Brooklyn, 2. Jay married a former Miss Tennessee in 2004, and Joe Don has wedding plans this year. Their growth as people is reflected in the ever-increasing depth of their music, and they are enjoying both the effort and the rewards.

"The three of us have wanted to do this since we were kids . . . we are nowhere near done yet!"