Joe Don Rooney enjoying ride with Rascal Flatts
A version of this story appears in Wednesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
Rooney, Rascal Flatts prove “Unstoppable”
If “Life Is a Highway,” then Joe Don Rooney’s decade-long trek with Rascal Flatts has been a fast-moving, far-flung joyride.
On June 6, the contemporary country trio marked the 10th anniversary of its first album release. In April, the multi-platinum-selling group put out its sixth studio album, the chart-topping “Unstoppable.”
“It’s been 10 years. It’s been 10 years I’ve been on this ride with Rascal Flatts,” Rooney said, his tone a bit incredulous, in a teleconference last week. “It’s just been a blur.”
The guitarist, who grew up in Picher, will return this weekend to his old stomping grounds. He and bandmates bassist/pianist Jay DeMarcus and singer Gary LeVox will play a big outdoor show Friday at Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, just three miles from Picher.
“It’s gonna be awesome to come back. It is like a family reunion. It’s gonna be great to get to park the bus there and spend the whole day with them, maybe try to play a little golf with Dad,” he said.
The country star is glad to have a happy reason for returning to the northeast corner of Oklahoma.
While the band played a sold-out September show in Tulsa, Rooney’s made his last trip to his hometown as a Red Cross volunteer. After a tornado ravaged Picher on May 10, 2008, he returned to help out the community and survey the damage, including the crumpled remains of his childhood home.
“I’ve learned that, you know what, sometimes you just gotta put down whatever you’re doing and just go help somebody,” said Rooney, who has been honored with his bandmates for the group’s various humanitarian efforts.
“Getting to see Picher go through that tornado, on the heels of everything else going on there, it’s just like, good Lord, after all this, how can a tornado come in and practically wipe away the town? But things like that do happen, and it’s sad reality.
“But I think we have people like the Red Cross, we have the Salvation Army, we have people like that that come in and help in ways that are just mind-blowing.”
The 1994 Picher High School graduate has watched from afar as his hometown has dwindled. For the past few years, the community has been cleared out under a federal buyout as part of the Tar Creek Superfund site, an 40-square-mile area polluted by years of lead and zinc mining. The school is closing; the last class of Picher Gorillas graduated last month.
“I tell a lot of people about my life growing up and my hometown and my amazing memories of growing up in small-town America. And then I tell them about my hometown basically slowly disappearing,” he said. “It’s really sad. … I have so many great memories of growing up in Oklahoma and growing up in Picher, and right there in the Miami-Ottawa County area. It was my platform. It was my world for so many years.”
He credited his small-town upbringing with providing him confidence and the chance to play both sports and in marching band. Now, instead of a “band geek” performing before a few hundred people on Picher’s Hayman Field, he’s playing for thousands of screaming fans at the likes of Madison Square Garden and, later this summer, Wrigley Field.
“It’s very humbling every night. You know, I do have some nights when it’s kind of a blur and it goes by and I don’t get to think about it much,” he said. “But there are those special nights when it does hit me between the eyes and I just get shocked myself. … It’s an amazing dream come true.
“But I think it’s all due to, seriously, growing up in that small area and that beautiful area that gave me such a broad outlook on life and gave me the confidence to just challenge myself and try anything I wanted to try.”
He started playing guitar as a teenager and was inspired by the late Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd, who grew up in Miami. Rooney was 19 when he moved to Nashville, Tenn. He formed Rascal Flatts with LeVox and DeMarcus, who are cousins, in 1999.
Since, the band has sold nearly 20 million albums, notched 10 No. 1 singles and earned a plethora of awards. For Rooney, the level of success still doesn’t quite seem normal.
“I don’t think it ever will, and I think it’s because of where I came from,” he said. “I don’t think it should make sense to me. Because if it did, I think it wouldn’t be as special to me.”
Though many of his relatives and friends have moved from Picher, he expects Friday’s show to be a big, joyful reunion. He is bringing his wife, model Tiffany Fallon, and their 1-year-old son Jagger along for the homecoming.
“Miami’s going to be off the hook, I’m just telling you right now. We’re gonna have a great time. I might not leave. I might just stay hooked up all night,” he said with a laugh.
In concert
Rascal Flatts with Darius Rucker
When: 7 p.m. Friday. Doors open at 5 p.m.
Where: Buffalo Run Casino Amphitheatre, 1000 Buffalo Run Blvd., Miami.
Ticket prices: $45. Premium tickets are sold out.
Directions: Go to www.buffaloruncasino.com.
Parking: Available onsite.
Information and tickets: (918) 542-7140 or www.ticketstorm.com.
-BAM
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As long as there are hometown heroes like Joe Don around, the memory of Picher will never die.