Raised on a steady diet of Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, Rhett inked a publishing deal with EMI just two years into his college career, and landed a song ("I Ain't Ready to Quit") on fellow country rocker Jason Aldean's 2010 release, My Kind of Party. Like Aldean, Brantley Gilbert, and Justin Moore, Rhett splits the difference between slick, contemporary country and rowdy good-time rock & roll, an equation he put to the test on his 2011 debut single "Something to Do with My Hands." An EP, simply called Thomas Rhett, appeared early in 2013, and later that year his debut full-length, It Goes Like This, arrived. The album reached number six on the Billboard 200 and the Top 30 in Canada on the strength of the Top Ten Country hit singles "It Goes Like This," "Get Me Some of That," and "Make Me Wanna," all of which topped Billboard's Country Airplay charts. Led by the single "Crash and Burn," which reached number one on Billboard's Country Airplay charts and number two on the Hot Country chart, Rhett's sophomore album, Tangled Up, appeared in September 2015. ~ James Christopher Monger