Darius Rucker on His New Rock Band, Working with BigXthaPlug and Swapping Nashville's Broadway for London's Cobbled Streets

It's a typical British summer's day - that's to say, it's raining, but somehow muggy and clammy at the same time. Plans for a pleasant, hazy meander through the Chelsea Physic Garden while chatting to Darius Rucker are quickly exchanged in favour of a brief dash through a greenhouse, before we agree to take shelter in the café.

As Rucker cradles his pot of tea and I sip my cappuccino, the ‘Wagon Wheel’ hitmaker professes how he has come to love so many British whimsies and foibles. For the best part of a year now, the South Carolina singer-songwriter has been living on this side of The Pond, eschewing Nashville's dizzying Broadway lights in favour of the quaint cobblestones and pub-adorned streets of the Big Smoke.

He gushes about how at home he is, and how, as soon as he set foot in London again, he started to feel the stress that was surrounding his next musical chapter dissipate. Rucker is visibly at ease, and seems comfortable working in a setting where he is still widely respected and beloved, but not hampered by the same weighty expectations and boundaries that come with creating an album in Music City.

Epitomising the sense of freedom that Rucker speaks about is his recent collaboration with BigXthaPlug, a trap-star that has followed in the footsteps of Beyoncé and Post Malone by venturing into the country space after achieving mainstream success.

Rucker appears on the title-track to BigX's debut country record, ‘I Hope You're Happy’, a project peppered with A-list guests and up-and-comers such as Luke Combs, Ella Langley, Jelly Roll, Bailey Zimmerman, Shaboozey, INK and Tucker Wetmore.

Rucker's vocals are the first thing you hear when listening to this album, with the ‘Beers and Sunshine’ crooner serving up one of the most striking performances on the project. It's a bluesy, evocative number - co-written by Chris Stapleton and Anderson East - which finds Rucker's rich, soulful delivery gliding across the sparse, intricate accompaniment, before BigX's booming raps enter the fray.

“I got a phone call a couple months ago with a buddy of mine who's friends with X, and those guys asked if I'd be interested”, Rucker recalls, “They sent me some of the stuff they'd already done. Then they sent me the song, and Chris [Stapleton] was singing the demo. It was so good, and they asked me to do it. I told them, ‘If you don't like it, don't use it!’ We went in, and I tried to make it my own. It's just really cool to get to sing a little blues thing, then X has these great lyrics”.

Rucker modestly jokes, “When I listened to it, I thought, ‘That doesn't sound like me!’ I realized that it's just different...I was trying to be one of those old blues guys”.

He underlines, though, that ‘I Hope You're Happy’ is not an indication of what fans should expect from his eagerly awaited follow-up album to his 2023 album, Carolyn's Boy.

He explains, “It's not really as bluesy as that. We do have some stuff that went that way. But no, it's definitely a country record. You know, writing over here with these guys, we were writing about different things, and even when we're writing about the same thing as we would in Nashville, we're writing about it in different ways - because British people are just different. When you're raised in a different culture, in a different country, you see things differently”. Rucker goes on to name-check a few members of the UK's songwriting royalty, stressing, “It was just awesome to be able to write with people like Wayne Hector, Amy Wadge, Steve Robson, The Nocturns, James Blunt...I'm dying for people to hear it”.

Rucker has joined forces with the likes of Ed Sheeran before, with the duo co-writing ‘Sara’, a stand-out from Carolyn's Boy, but his desire to work with a British team of creatives is not the only one reason the country icon decided to move to London. Hector and Wadge regularly frequent Nashville and work with country artists, so Rucker could have simply linked up with them when they were in town.

No, his transatlantic move was inspired by something deeper, a yearning to challenge himself, to draw from new creative reservoirs and offer fans a record that will surprise them.

Rucker speaks fondly about Nashville, but hints at feeling somewhat boxed in and uninspired by his surroundings there in this season of his career, “You know, I can still get on the radio, if I'm lucky, but Country Radio's not dying to play a Darius Rucker song. So I just wanted to come over here and make the record I wanted to make, and then go back and say, ‘Here it is, do what you want to do with it’...I'm in no rush and we're taking our time. Moving here and making this record has been one of the best experiences of my life - and I've done some cool shit”.

Many of Rucker's contemporaries are content to produce solid, inoffensive and safe records that feel like echoes of older works, with one or maybe two singles being shipped to radio.

But it feels like Rucker has grown jaded with being pressurised to deliver the next ‘Wagon Wheel’ or the next ‘Beers and Sunshine’, and to create an album to meet other people's expectations and tick certain boxes, rather than following his own artistic impetus.

“When the idea to move to London happened, all the stress left”, he muses, “I think if I was over in the US still writing with my buddies in Nashville, I would be more stressed...But when I came here, it was just a case of, ‘Alright, let's write some songs’. And we started writing songs that felt like nothing I'd written before. Like, we have this great duet with my daughter singing on it. It's just awesome. I mean, it's really awesome. And I don't know if I would have done that in Nashville”.

Rucker reveals - for the first time ever - another venture that he has up his sleeve, one that, again, you can't help but feel wouldn't have manifested if he'd have stayed in Nashville. He excitedly announces that he has formed a rock band alongside R.E.M's Mike Mills and The Black Crowes’ Steve Gorman, called Howl, Howl, Howl.

He outlines, “I got another project that we're about to concentrate on for a few months. I'm in a band with Mike Mills from R.E.M. and Steve Gorman, who played drums in The Black Crowes, Howl, Howl, Howl, and we'll put out a record here soon that's just straight rock n’ roll. The first time one of my buddies listened to it, they said, ‘If this was 1998, this would be Album of the Year...!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you're right!’ It's a great record. Moving here, I got away from the mindset of, ‘Okay, I gotta rush this record’. We were going to try to rush to get it out in August...but we were like, ‘Let's do it in January’. I've decided to really take my time and make the record perfect. But this other rock project is gonna be a lot of fun - we're gonna play clubs for two weeks, it's gonna be great”.

While those club shows are yet to be unveiled, fans will get the chance to see Rucker in action as part of his expansive 2025 arena tour with Jake Owen and The Shires. It will take him through Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester and London this Fall.

Rucker emphasises how his love for the UK was sparked by his appearance at the inaugural C2C Festival in 2013, “I told my manager at the time, ‘I want to come every other year. Let's see what we can do’. And we did it - we came every other year. We'd come and play Shepherd's Bush, and then we played the Hammersmith Apollo - one of the best shows ever. That and the Royal Albert Hall show are still two shows that, if I have Alzheimer's, I'll still remember those shows”. Rucker returns to the Royal Albert Hall in September for the Opry 100 celebration.

He admits that, from his first UK show, he was determined to be a part of country's blossoming presence this side of The Pond - something we are now seeing the fruits of. In 2025, country achieved its biggest annual share of the UK recorded music market since the turn of the century, with Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, Beyoncé, Shaboozey and many more helping to fuel its explosion in popularity.

As his tea begins to dwindle and the café lunch rush dies down, the mood gets more contemplative as Rucker touches on the sobering reality of Nashville's country world, and the barriers and obstacles still put up by many members of that scene.

Rucker has always been keen to forge his own path and take risks - such as by joining BigXthaPlug on an album that traditionalist skeptics have dismissed as a cash-grab. Let's not forget that Rucker was the first black artist to win CMA New Artist of the Year in 2009, and many agree that it certainly feels like his trophy cabinet should have at least one Male Vocalist of the Year or Entertainer of the Year gong. It seems his role as an unashamed outlier and a modern country maverick has, unfortunately, not always curried popularity among Music City's elites.

Touching on BigX's country shift, Rucker sighs, “Oh, there were [skeptics] and I'm sure there still are. But that's something else. Honestly, there's a lot of people that, no matter what happens, they'll be skeptical if it's not played the way they want, or it's not colored the way they want it...But when you see people like X embracing country, where every single song has not only a country artist but a country star...it's one of those things. I think a lot of people have accepted this, but they're gonna have to accept it. It's not that niche anymore. It's global”.

Rucker makes a point that, as we have seen with recent developments in country, still needs to be driven home to some listeners. Country in 2025 is a lot more diverse, eclectic and varied than it used to be - and it's stronger because of that. Wallen and BigX can sing and rap over trap beats, but it's still country, while on other ends of the spectrum you have Tyler Childers pioneering a more alt-country aesthetic and Zach Top delivering neo-traditional anthems.

Another artist acting as a flag-bearer for a more open-minded brand of country is Post Malone, whose 2024 opus, F-1Trillion, paid homage to an array of sub-genres. Rucker emerged with Post during his South Carolina tour-stop last year, and it looks like we won't have to wait too much longer before we finally get a collaboration.

Rucker smiles, “I've been friends with Post for a while, and he called me up and asked me to do that [show]. It was awesome. He's a great kid. We all have our problems, he's definitely got his. But he's a great songwriter, a great artist. I love being around him. He's one of those guys that you just sit and laugh the whole time”.

As for the collab, Rucker admits their schedules just haven't aligned yet, “I was supposed to be on the last [album], but I was working so much. He would call me every time he was in Nashville, like, ‘I'm coming in Monday’, and I'd be like, ‘I'm leaving Sunday!’”

While it might be a little while longer before we get to hear a Post Malone and Darius Rucker link-up, and indeed Rucker's next solo album, it feels safe to say it'll be well worth it. Rucker sounds reinvigorated at the prospect of the world hearing his new record, one where the art itself has been the sole guiding light throughout the creative process, rather than record sales, radio singles or outside expectations.

“I think people are gonna be very, very happy”, Rucker concludes. With that, we say our goodbyes, and I'm left with a feeling of exhilaration and anticipation for this next era. The former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman has almost 40 years of music-making under his belt, and has been an adored fixture of the country landscape for most of that time. At this point in their career, artists often either struggle to find any new artistic momentum, or don't have the desire - or need - to pursue it.

But it's evident that Rucker has struck creative gold on his transatlantic adventure, and it feels as though he is on the cusp of reaffirming that he is not merely a revered legacy artist, he remains an innovator, pushing the genre into brand new territory.

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