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Don't think that Darius Rucker doesn't think about it. Still, while the 43-year-old is grateful, he admits his fast rise to country music stardom during the past year hasn't fully hit him just yet."
"It feels great," said Rucker during a recent phone interview. "But I've been in the middle of working and I don't know if I've really let sink in what's been happening."
Surely, millions of fans remember Rucker as the frontman for one of the 1990s biggest bands Hootie & the Blowfish. But by the time he released his R&B debut album Back to Then in 2002, with little fanfare, Rucker had become an afterthought.
However, things changed in the summer of 2008. Rucker became the first African-American to have a No.1 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart in 25 years with his break-up anthem "Don't Think I Don't Think About It." Rucker followed with his second straight No.1 "It Won't Be Like This For Long," this past March, pushing his 2008 album Learn to Live above 500,000 copies sold.
All of it was shock to Rucker, who admits he never expected to even get a record deal before Capitol Records picked him up. Now he's already begun work on his follow up to Learn to Live with songwriter Bill Anderson (Vince Gill; Brad Paisley).
Still, even with his country success Rucker hasn't left his roots behind. As those attending his show with Rascal Flatts at Darien Lake on July 11 are sure to find out, Rucker still has a little Hootie left in him:
So how's the tour with Rascal Flatts going?
It's cool not having to worry about ticket sales. [Laughs]. Rascal Flatts put on a great show. I said this before I started the tour — I was really looking forward to hanging out with those guys and seeing if they were as cool as I thought they were. And they are. It's like we've been buddies forever. It's exactly the kind of tour I wanted at this point in my career.
You've had two No.1 hits and your third single "Alright" is creeping up the charts. What's this ride been like?
I don't think anybody was expecting two No.1's right out of the box. It's just cool to see that people like it. I was just up in the offices at EMI, which owns Capitol, and for the past three weeks I've been the biggest selling artist on EMI in North America. That's a crazy thought with that roster.
But there was a point where you didn't think you'd get signed?
Yeah. I was hanging out a few years ago with Doc McGee, my manager, and I said to him 'I'm thinking about doing a country record.' He said to me, 'You're not thinking about getting a record deal are you? Because I don't think we can get one.' That's one of the biggest managers in the world telling me I might as well do it on my own. But it just so happened that later on Doc was out to dinner with the president of Capital Records, who told Doc that he always thought the lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish was a country singer. So I got a record deal from that conversation.
I've heard that you still play Hootie & the Blowfish songs on tour.
I think I would be ripping off the people who came to see us if I didn't play "Let Her Cry." How could I not want to? The roar that I hear the second I say "She sits alone by a lamppost." I'll play that for the rest of my life.
I have to ask. Everyone knows from the lyrics in "Only Wanna Be With You" that you're a huge Miami Dolphins fan. Do the Dolphins still make you cry?
The thing that's tough for me is that we haven't won a championship in 35 years. But I don't cry anymore. If the Dolphins still made me cry, a couple of years ago I would have lost my tear ducts.
