Thomas Rhett Live in Session for Absolute Radio Country

Absolute Radio Country is where real music matters, and we are thrilled to have been utterly treated to a live session with the one and only Thomas Rhett! Fresh from opening for Luke Combs at Wembley Stadium, the country singer-songwriting superstar came in to perform two of his own tracks - 'Die A Happy Man' and 'Somethin' 'Bout A Woman' - AND a spine-tinglingly special cover of Ella Langley's juggernaut 'Choosin' Texas'.

But not only were we witness to this exceptional and intimate gig, we even got to chat to Thomas, too, with our very own Baylen Leonard asking him about everything from songwriting to his famous friends Niall Horan and Teddy Swims - and even a potential career divergence into acting...

WATCH: Thomas Rhett - 'Choosin' Texas' (Ella Langley Cover) (Live in Session for Absolute Radio Country)

Thomas Rhett LOVES the UK

Thomas didn’t hold back on telling us just how much he loves the UK, gushing over how much our love for country has grown with each of his different visits across the pond: "It’s amazing to me. This trip is extra special for me. Never in a million years would I have dreamed that I would get to play Wembley Stadium and do it opening for one of my dear buddies, Luke Combs," adding that his headline 2027 tour will be "freaking awesome".

He affirmed that one of his "favourite memories as a musician" was coming over to the UK for C2C Festival, opening up for Dwight Yoakam and Miranda Lambert, going on to say why he likes playing here so much: "I just think that the folks listening to country music over here are listening to more than just the hit.

"They're listening to more than just the single on the radio, which is so nice as an artist when you get to stand up on stage and be like, 'Man, let me go back in the catalogue here. I'm going to pick a random song from my second or third record,' and I'll see pockets of people in the crowd that know every single word to those songs. And so I kind of feel like I get to kind of experiment with a lot of my catalogue over here."

Small intimate shows make him more nervous than huge sell-out crowds

Thomas left us open-mouthed when he admitted he much prefers huge sell-out crowds to more intimate performances - because he gets more nervous! Confessing that it feels very "exposed" in a smaller crowd, Thomas said: "I don't know, I think the more intimate settings when it's just you and a guitar are a little bit more nerve-wracking, but once you kind of settle into it, they are my favourite things to do in the world.

"I would love to at some point just bring a guitar and go do a theatre tour and literally just be able to tell stories. I love telling stories about songs. I love for people to feel connected to why I wrote it, how I wrote it, when I wrote it, and at what time period it was at, because I do think it kind of connects people to the song a little bit more."

Bring it on, Thomas! We’d love to see an intimate theatre tour by the singer! He went on to say that although it’s nerve-wracking in front of 80,000 people, it’s a "different kind" of nerves: "It's more like you're about to run out of a stadium to go play football - it's just like, ‘let's go, let's go’."

When Baylen asked how he gets himself amped up before a gig, Thomas explained that he’s got a guy who comes on the road with him, a professional boxer who helps him with punching mitts and jump ropes to get in the zone. Speaking about the athleticism required to perform back-to-back stadium shows, he said: "If you're not careful, I mean, you can run like 5 miles in an hour-long show."

Talking about his ability to make even the huge shows feel intimate, Thomas said: "It just takes practice. I remember my first ever stadium tour that I did, I think it would have been 2017. I was a direct support opening for Kenny Chesney, and we did 20 straight football stadiums, which I'd never seen in my life.

"And so you go from playing a 400 person club to that, you're like, what? I can't even see people's faces in the very back row. I watched Kenny do it every night and he would make every single human in the very back feel like they were sitting in the front row. And I just, I studied him that summer."

WATCH: Thomas Rhett - 'Die A Happy Man' (Live in Session for Absolute Radio Country)

What it was like supporting his friend Luke Combs on tour

Having supported good friend Luke Combs on his 2026 tour, Thomas couldn't find enough good words to say about him. "He's just such a personable human being - he's a normal dude," he said. Gushing over Luke's talents, he added: "I don't think that ego has ever touched his brain. I think that he walks out there no matter what the stage is and he treats it just like he would sitting in someone's back yard. Obviously, his songs are amazing. He's just a likeable human. Great performer, incredible vocalist."

Thomas then credited Luke with expanding country music around the world: "But watching his journey, playing overseas like in Australia and in the UK and the Netherlands and in Norway and all these different places, like I think it's making a path for a lot of other artists to be like, 'Oh, maybe we could go do that too.' I know that a lot of artists have tried and some have succeeded, but I think you have to really put your time in.

"I think that Luke has done a fantastic job at coming over here multiple times, playing different size venues - whether it's clubs or arenas and now obviously playing Wembley. It gives someone like me the ability to be like, 'Man, maybe we could do that'. And so I think what he has done for international version of country music is beyond anything I've ever seen."

Being longtime friends with Teddy Swims

Another fellow artist that Thomas couldn't praise more was Teddy Swims, best known for his hits 'Lose Control', 'The Door' and 'Mr. Know It All'. Calling him his "favourite human on the planet", Thomas added: "I love that dude. Just a lovely human to be around. I only use the word lovely when I'm here, by the way!

"But no, I can't even remember where I met Teddy, honestly. I think it had to have been five or six years ago. Also, my producer, Julian, produced all of Teddy Swim's records. And so I think that connection got started through him. Julian sent me a song called 'Broke' that he put out on his first record that I loved and I actually wanted to record it for my record. Then I met Teddy and Teddy was like, 'Why don't you just sing on the song with me?'

"So I sang on Teddy's first record. I don't think anyone knew that Teddy was going to be Teddy at that point. We all knew that his voice was insane, but no one knew that 'Lose Control' was on its way and 'Bad Dreams' and all these songs. Every time I'm around Teddy, I just, you can't help but smile. Just a great dude."

How his collaboration with Niall Horan came about

Thomas dissected his unlikely friendship with former One Direction star Niall Horan, revealing the pair have actually been fast friends for around a decade after being introduced by their mutual producer, Julian Bunetta.

Explaining that their meet-ups are mainly based around golf, Thomas said they'd "maintained a friendship" over the years. He said: "Every time I'd come over here, he'd come out to the show. Every time he'd be in the States playing, I'd go see one of his shows. But really just in the last few years, we kind of have started talking a lot more and hanging more."

Things took a more professional turn after Thomas recorded track 'Old Tricks' with "buddy" Blake Shelton, receiving a text from Niall the day of the song's release to ask why Thomas hadn't asked him to collaborate on it!

"He's like, 'This is my favourite song of yours ever'," as Thomas explained that Niall then recorded his own vocal for it after Thomas received the nod of approval from Blake. The pair then decided to perform together in the US in Nashville and Hershey ("literally the two most fun nights of my life").

"He's just a great dude. I was with him last night, actually. Just a fantastic human and great musician, great songwriter."

WATCH: Thomas Rhett - 'Somethin' 'Bout A Woman' (Live in Session for Absolute Radio Country)

Songwriting Q&A with Thomas Rhett

Of course, we couldn't have an interview with Thomas Rhett and not at least ask him a couple of questions about songwriting! With a catalogue as full as Thomas', we were curious to see if he could remember the first song he ever wrote - and it turns out he had a pretty impressive co-writer on it with him... None other than his dad, country music legend Rhett Akins.

"I think my dad and I wrote a song when I was nine called 'A Piece of Wood'. It was about making a guitar." So sweet! With such a young start on the songwriting train, it's no surprise that Thomas was in bands in high school - continuing his practise in the art of penning a hit.

"I think just growing up with a dad that sang country music and wrote songs, I've always kind of had a knack for just making things rhyme and putting different schemes together. But it wasn't really until maybe 8th grade when I got into bands and stuff, and me and dad would sit there and write songs for my horrible band," admitting that they were called the High Heeled Flip Flops.

Mainly inspired by his dad's love for the Rolling Stones, the band leaned more towards British punk than country: "I think I've seen the Stones a minimum 15 times in concert. My dad travels all around the country to see them. So I fell in love with the Stones, when I was at that age, we were listening to a lot of the Ramones.

"I just kind of fell in love with that type of music. And me and four dudes in school... Dad bought me a drum kit and somebody else got a Marshall half stack and somebody got a bass guitar and we sang through an amplifier that was on the ground and we did one show."

And now, for the trickiest question - which is his favourite song of his own that he's ever written? "Honestly, are there songs that I think are better than others? Absolutely. There's some songs that I've put out that, you know, they were fine. But 'Life Changes' is, I think, probably my favourite song I've written because of the weight that held in my life at that time.

"I wrote that in 2016, I was adopting my first child. We were pregnant with our second child. There was just a lot happening. My career was starting to go. And I just remember being at our farm with my dad writing that song. And to get to do that with my dad made that song extra special for me."

Which made the next question a fairly easy one to answer - who's his favourite songwriting partner? "There's not many people that get to do this for a living with their dad. And I think that I don't take that lightly. Getting to work with your father in a professional setting and it actually works is really, really cool for me. I think he'll always be a better songwriter than me."

Expanding into an acting career

Like many country artists, Thomas has dipped his toes in the acting world, having appeared in a cameo capacity in the likes of The Ranch and Ransom Canyon. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he could sink his teeth into a slightly more dramatic role, should the opportunity arise.

"Every bit of acting I've done, I've always played myself. It's not really hard to play me. I know me. But I do think it'd be really, really fun to like actually, dive in and be somebody else," later joking that he could play a young Mick Jagger in a film. Watch this space!

The struggle of picking his baby son's name

Thomas, who is a parent to five children with his wife Lauren, admitted that they had struggled to pick a name for their little boy, who was born in February 2026 - eventually settling on the moniker Brave: "We struggled really hard with boy names for some reason.

"Our girl names came out really easily, but boy names, we struggled hard. It took us until we left the hospital to actually write his birth certificate of what his name was going to be."

Confessing that they hadn't exactly seen eye to eye on the matter, Thomas said: "I wanted a name like Lyric, which I thought was really cool. My wife just said she didn't want anything musical."