He left the band amid some turmoil after the release of its second album, and headed into the studio to make a record of his own. The resulting Underneath the Same Moon -- which featured collaborations with Sara Evans, the Fairfield Four, and Delbert McClinton, as well as his future songwriting partner from Big & Rich, Kenny Alphin (aka Big Kenny) -- was finished and unfortunately shelved in 1998. Meanwhile, Big Kenny had recorded his own solo album, Live a Little, only to see it suffer the same fate as Underneath the Same Moon. With no solo album to support, the two songwriters funneled their energies into Big & Rich, which became a popular country duo during the 2000s. Years later, Rich's success with Alphin renewed interest in his solo album, prompting BNA Records to officially release Underneath the Same Moon in March of 2006. Rich spent the following year hosting his own reality TV show, Gone Country, and touring in support of Big & Rich's third studio album. Meanwhile, he found time to further his solo career with the the reserved Son of a Preacher Man, which marked his second solo record upon its release in early 2009. After getting that album out of his system, Rich released the single “Country Done Come to Town" as a precursor to the harder-edged, party-down sound of of his 2010 full-length, Rich Rocks, which more fully recalls the early days of Big & Rich. ~ James Christopher Monger