Artist:
Rascal Flatts
Bassist:
Jay DeMarcus
About the song:
Life Is A Highway was originally written by Tom Cochrane in the 80’s but not released until 1991 on his Mad Mad World album. The Rascal Flatts cover was released on the Cars soundtrack and a few months later on their Me and My Gang album in 2006. Even without being released as a single, their version reached #7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Jay DeMarcus rips out some killer sixteenth fills – check out bars 44 and 82 for motown-esque chromaticism in the prechoruses, bars 67-69 in the bridge, and the insanity that happens in bars 87-90 and 95/96! Crazily enough, Jay had to beg to play on their second record and he had to offer to pay for the wasted session time if it didn’t work out!
“We did the first track on that second record, and the producers were sitting there. The drummer, Lonnie Wilson, came into the control room, and we listened back to the first take, and he started laughing. He was like, ‘Man, that’s awesome! There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be playing on all kinds of records.’ And our producer at the time, Mark Bright, turned around and started chuckling, ‘All right, all right, I was wrong, I was wrong. I’m sorry. And after that, it was all good. That’s how we started playing on our records.”
Jay DeMarcus
The transcription:
