Welcome to Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living. I'm your host, Sid Evans, and for this episode, I sat down with multi-platinum country star Thomas Rett and his wife, Lauren Aikins, at their farm just outside of Nashville. We talked a lot

about college football and how this duo has managed to stay married for more than 10 years, despite

rooting for some very different teams. Thomas Rett grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, where his father

and grandfather primed him to be a Bulldog superfan.

Meanwhile, his wife, Lauren, bleeds the orange of the Tennessee Volunteers, where she went

to nursing school. We talked about the deep roots of their fandom, some of their game day

traditions, and the very hot topic of which team their kids are going to root for.

All that and their favorite tailgate recipe on this week's Biscuits and Jam.

Thomas Rhett and Lauren Aikins, welcome to Biscuits and Jam. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

So I've got to start out by asking y'all a little bit about the place where we're sitting.

This is actually the first podcast that I've ever done live and in person.

Wow. Wow. I know. Because you started in 2020, right? It was all on Zoom. Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about this place and what it means to y'all.

Man, this is kind of our little slice of paradise.

Really close to Nashville.

Me and my dad bought this place together in 2016.

I remember we came out here both knowing we could not afford this place. And so we came out here and they told us what the price was and we're like, yeah, thank you all for letting us tour it. We're just dreaming. If you ever come down on the price, you know, holler at us. And three or four months later, I think it was still on the market and they called us and said, what would you all offer us? I remember we made an offer and they took it. It was 2016 and it's kind of like an ever-growing project. I mean, you come here today and there's a much of horse fences and clearing of trees. And Lauren has gotten into the horse game and I have followed alongside. And we're about to get a bunch of horses out here. And hopefully this is a place we spend a lot more time out with our families and doing more holidays out here. But this is our slice of heaven outside of Nashville. Sure. I mean, we've had family and friends get married out here. We spend anniversaries. This is where we did Valentine's. It's so easy to pop in. You can just come and stay a night. I mean, my parents stay out here. His parents, his brothers, like, hey, can I go fish out at the farm? And if you need to pop into town, you can drive, you know, 20 to 30 minutes somewhere. But if you want to feel like you were totally off the grid. In the woods. In off the grid. Yeah. It's our little getaway. Yeah. Well, when I drive in here today, there's a little pond right out behind us, and there were fish jumping like crazy in that pond.

Yeah, we love it, man.

I remember when we first got this place, the pond was as blue as the sky.

I think the previous owners put a bunch of, like, die. Like, you can dye a pond to make it look pristine. And I remember we came out here, you could see every fish in the dagum pond. It was beautiful. And me and Dad were like, we got to dirty it up. I think there's like 20 fake trees that sit in the bottom of the pond just for structure. And then we just kind of let the die go.

And now the fish kind of have habitat.

And the bass are up top.

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