Thomas Rhett Talks Fear of Horses, Being a Girl Dad, and Favorite Snack Chip Ahead of Evansville Concert

Thomas Rhett is bringing his "Bring the Bar to You Tour" to the Ford Center in downtown Evansville this Friday (October 14th, 2022) with special guests Parker McCollum and Conner Smith, but before he gets here, he took some time out of his busy schedule to chat with Leslie and me about working to overcome his fear of horses, what it means to be the father of four girls (SPOILER ALERT: There's a lot of makeup involved), and what we can expect at the show. Oh, and since he and I share a love of Fritos corn chips, I had to ask him what his go-to flavor is.

Take a listen to the entire interview or read the full transcript below, and be sure to get your tickets to the show at the Ford Center box office or Ticketmaster.

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Ryan O'Bryan: Number one for new country 99.5 WKD Q. It's the Q crew morning show with Ryan and Leslie and joining us now, the man who will be at the Ford Center this Friday night bringing his “Bring the Bar to You Tour,” it is Thomas Rhett. Good morning Thomas. Here's want to start with, I need your help with something. The new single "Half of Me” with with Riley Green, which is such a fun song I really dig it.

Thomas: Thank you.

Ryan: I can't quite make out what Riley says at the end of that song.

Thomas: Oh, it wasn't actually supposed to be in there, but we we started dying laughing so hard that my producer just kept it after the master was done. And we were like, that was always supposed to be in there, but I think he says something like, “I can't tell if I sound good or if it's just good because you're in it.”

Ryan: OK. Well...

Thomas: I think that's what he said.

Ryan: I thought it said, “I can't tell if that was good, but I can't tell if it's because you're in it or not.” And I thought why is Riley giving Thomas crap it's Thomas’s song and you got invited. Why are you giving him a hard time?

Thomas: No, I think, I think that was Riley's like third time to sing it and he was just laughing at the end. They're like, oh, I have no idea if I sound good or not, but it's probably good because we are singing on it, and I was like dude you sound incredible. Come on.

Ryan: That's right. It's a fun song. I do really like it. I also have another question for you about one of my favorite snacks is Fritos and I know you did some work with Fritos.

Thomas: Oh yeah.

Ryan: What I have to ask is what is your go-to Fritos flavor?

Thomas: Dude, BBQ twists like all day.

Ryan: Oh, you do the BBQ twists. OK, so I'm a I'm a huge fan of just the straight BBQ Frito chips, and they've brought them back permanently because people like me have cried and whined and complained for years and I just was curious as to where you stood on the Fritos chart, so there you go.

Thomas: It is funny how brands will continue and discontinue stuff. Like I remember when Wendy's got rid of the spicy. Chicken Nuggets and I was like, what are y'all doing? And I Remember Chance the Rapper actually posted and said can we start a campaign to bring back spicy chicken nuggets and they did.

Ryan: Yeah, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. There's no doubt about It, that's for sure.

Thomas: That's right.

Leslie Morgan: And then I want to talk to you about...I love your social media presence on Instagram with, you know, your wife Lauren, and you and your daughters, and it's just so positive and funny and all about family. And one of my favorite posts you made recently was you showed vulnerability because everybody thinks that every country singer is a cowboy and can ride a horse.

Thomas: Oh yeah.

Leslie: And when you put that on there, I mean we talked about that on the air, I thought, how great is that that you, one, admitted that you had always been scared and two, you were doing it for your daughters to prove to them, you know, overcoming fear.

Thomas: Yeah, well, I mean it was either that or learn how to do gymnastics and I picked horses. Now my wife has been around horses her whole life and actually, you know, my family down in South Georgia used to have a bunch of horses and I never, I just never, like my dad never rode them, you know? So, it wasn't really a part of my early childhood or whatever. But, we were out in Wyoming last year and there was an area of…it's called Cheyenne Frontier Days. It's like a giant rodeo. And my wife was out there and there was a place where you go adopt a horse. And I was just like, of course, this is what we're about to do in Wyoming. And so, we adopted like a 2 year old Mustang named Daisy, and brought her back to Nashville and worked with a trainer with her for a while, and my wife was like riding that thing bareback after like the first three months this horse was home, and then my wife went to South Dakota I guess a couple weeks ago to get a few more because apparently, you know, horses are not supposed to be by themselves. And I was like, well that makes sense. Like I guess if I was, I a horse I'd want some friends to hang out with. And so, now we have four horses. And, I went out there the other day and was, you know, brushing Daisy, cleaning her feet off, learning how to saddle her, and when I got up on it, I mean, I had a panic attack. My wife was like, if you don't breathe, the horse won't breathe. And so, you know, you kind of, I just kind of had to overcome that fear. And, my girls have been riding horses for two years now and I see how horses get addicting. Like people talk about it all the time. But I truly understand how it's addicting because like, they're just, they can be the most calming things in the world and it was just a good fear to overcome. And hopefully, in five or six years, we're all just riding trails together. That's kind of, that's kind of my dream. So, it's been a fun thing for us.

Leslie: And it is a great thing. I grew up with horses. So, it's it is a great family thing to be able to ride horses together. It's like no other thing you can do with your family all together.

Thomas: 100%. We're very, very excited about that, but it did take some overcoming fear, no doubt.

Leslie: I'm super proud of you.

Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Leslie: I do want to know if you can tell us,  you're a girl dad and that’s very special, I think. What is your favorite part of being a girl dad?

Thomas: Well, you know, I don't know what it's like to have a boy, but I can't imagine anyone having my heart more than those four little babies, you know. And they love their mom, obviously, but like we just, it's just the bond between the father and daughter. It's pretty special, you know, just to be able to, you know, take them to school in the morning or you know, do one-on-one trips to Sonic or whatever. It is like they just, they just crack me up and I love how they're getting older just watching them kind of…you can kind of tell at five and six years old what kind of person they're going to be, you know? And me and my wife make bets all the time of like you know what are each of our kids going to do? And I think Willa Grey is gonna be a heart surgeon. Like, she already said that she wants to be a heart surgeon. I think that, uh, Aiden James is, she's pretty dramatic. And she's, I think she's going to be a really good actress one day or run a Fortune 500 company. One of the two. So it's just been, like just watching them develop into their own little people and it's just, I don't know, it's just so fun to watch them grow up. I love it.

Leslie: And you're a great dad. I can see that on your social media. My gosh, you can see that when they look at you that there's that special bond.

Thomas: Well, I appreciate that. I love him to death and just, you know, I'm doing the best job I can just like we all are, right?

Ryan: That's all you can do. How much makeup have you had to put on, or had put on you?

Thomas: Man, I've had to put a stop to it, you know, it kind of got the point where that's kind of what the girls wanted to do, and I was like, you know what, Daddy not going to wear makeup today, you know, well, we can, we can sit and paint our nails and all that good stuff, but Daddy is done with the eyeliner.

Leslie: How many times have you been on stage and you have your hand up on the mic and you're like, oh, my fingernails are still painted pink?

Thomas: It's happened several times. I'm not kidding.

Ryan: How are your nail painting skills on them?

Thomas: They're getting better.

Ryan: OK, yeah, take some practice.

Thomas: You know, my wife was out of town all last week, so I had him all by myself Monday through Wednesday, which it's an act of God that everyone’s still alive and you know, like in the mornings…I remember Ada James looked at me and she was like hey, I need you to do braids in my hair today. I'm like, baby I don't know how to do that. Like me doing a high ponytail is all you're gonna get from me. And so we did. We did High Pony three days in a row and Mom got home and then everybody's in braids, so.

Ryan: There we go, mom fixed everything. Well, let's talk about the show. You come into the Ford Center on Friday (October 14th, 2022), you'll be there with the “Bring the Bar to You Tour,” Parker McCollum and Connor Smith coming along with you. How's it been? I know you've been back on the road now for probably about a year or so.

Thomas: Yeah, it's been a blast. I got, you know, these tours, when they begin, you kind of think like, we're about to have nine months of long, you know, on the road and then next thing you know, you wake up, you got six shows left. But I think that's kind of a testament to how fun it's been just getting to know Parker so well and getting to know Connor. It really is such a fun show and I just can't [believe] it's almost over. You know being Evansville in our last weekend it's gonna be a blast. So, I grew up cutting my teeth playing that building opening for Aldean and Luke and FGL and all these folks, and getting the headline is such a pleasure every time.

Ryan: Well, we're looking forward to seeing you. Can you give us a little idea…what are we expecting when you get here? What kind of show are we going to see?

Thoams: Man, it's just three hours of nonstop fun, you know. Like, I don't know how else to describe it, but like our mission this year, is to bring smiles to people's faces, just to bring joy, and hopefully the crowd is experiencing as much joy out there as we got up on stage. It's just a blast of a show, so you can expect a very, very good time.

Ryan: Are you bringing a bar? Because I mean it's in the tour name.

Thomas: We bring a bar.

Ryan: OK, good, You do bring a bar. I don't want false advertising here. I expect to see a bar.

Thomas: No, we bring the bar.

Ryan: Alright, good. We can't wait. That's Thomas Rhett. He'll be live at the Ford Center this Friday with the “Bring the Bar to You Tour,” you can still get tickets at the Ford Center box office, and Ticketmaster as well. Thomas, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for the time, and we'll see you when you get to town.

Thomas: Likewise, man. Look forward to it. Thank you all for your time today.

Ryan: No problem. Thanks, Thomas.