At the beginning of 2020, Rascal Flatts announced their impending retirement from country music, following a final tour. The band would have been over a month into their Farewell: Life Is a Highway Tour by now — but as the novel coronavirus pandemic took hold in the United States, the country trio had to cancel the trek.
“Yeah, we were angry about it,” Rascal Flatts lead singer Gary LeVox admitted to The Boot and other media outlets during a virtual roundtable in late June. “It’s been weird, it’s frustrating, and every state is different … all of it’s just crazy, you know?”
LeVox and bandmates Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney know, however, that they couldn’t let those emotions fester. “It’ll just sit there …” LeVox continues, “so you’ve just kinda gotta wash your hands of it and move on.”
On Friday (July 31), Rascal Flatts will celebrate their dwindling time as a trio with the release of a new EP, How They Remember You. As for the possibility of a rescheduled farewell tour, the guys say they “don’t really know” and “have no plans for the foreseeable future” beyond the release of this new music.
“Like everybody else … we were all thrown for a loop, and, quite frankly, 2020 has really sucked for everybody,” DeMarcus admits. “We don’t want to leave people hanging and just go away; we certainly want to go out and celebrate with them. As to when and how that’s gonna happen, we simply don’t know yet.”
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