Jay DeMarcus Shares How His Father Truly Was His 'Music Man'

For Jay DeMarcus and his father, music was a bond that was impenetrable. The Rascal Flatts bassist and songwriter wrote and recorded "Music Man" after his dad's death in October, and is now talking about just how closely the song's title and message reflect their relationship.

In a new behind-the-scenes video, DeMarcus describes his dad as his hero. While not classically trained, Stanley Wayne "Wayno" DeMarcus was a skilled guitarist, drummer and keyboard player, "and he sang like an angel," his son shares.

“I must have bugged him to death to show me scales on the piano and chords on the guitar, the basics of playing bass," Jay DeMarcus says. “He would show me just enough to keep the fire alive in me to keep pursuing music, but he wouldn’t show me exactly how to play something. He’d make me figure it out on my own by listening over and over and over again and training my ears.”

As the lyrics to "Music Man," suggest, DeMarcus would listen to his dad's old tapes as a kid and try to memorize his father's parts, succeeding often only after wearing them thin. Into his teenage years, he was consumed with watching him play. It's these memories that led him to explore music on his own.

"My dad really was my music man," he says.

This new song was written the night Wayno died, with the music filled in using instruments played by or provided by the patriarch of the family. It's a total tribute to Dad for Jay DeMarcus, and this new interview video details their close relationship. It's part biography, part song-story, but 100 percent raw emotion from one of country music's premier 21st-century musicians.