After five years of making hit albums, in 2004 Rascal Flatts’ Joe Don Rooney was frustrated. He was a rising country star with songs all over the radio, selling out arenas everywhere. But he was also a guitarist, and he was barely able to play on any of his own records.

“When I look at it, yeah, I was pissed off. Jay (DeMarcus, the trio’s bassist) and I didn’t play a lot on those albums,” the 35-year-old singer says in a phone interview from a pre-tour rehearsal in Tupelo, Miss. “At the same time, we had some amazing hit songs.”

For the band’s first five years, its record label, Disney-owned Lyric Street, brought in producers and session musicians to churn out hit records quickly. And it worked — Rascal Flatts’ first three albums would sell more than 9 million copies, establishing the band as country’s biggest superstar act between the commercial fall of the Dixie Chicks and the rise of Taylor Swift. But slowly, subtly, Rooney and DeMarcus (who form the trio with lead singer Gary LeVox) played politics. They brought in an old friend, veteran guitarist Dann Huff, who had discovered the band in Nashville clubs, and he gave them the gift of freedom.

“Dann was a big proponent of having us play and bring our personalities into the music — not only our voices, but our personalities,” Rooney says. “(Huff) really opened that door and that trust window with Lyric Street to allow us to be the musicians we are. All of a sudden, you hear these songs and they’re just a little bit different. You can hear a growth and maturity.”

Beginning with 2006’s Me and My Gang, which went triple platinum within months, Rooney played guitar on every track, notably the distinctive power chords on Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is a Highway” and the synthesized solo in the ballad “Words I Couldn’t Say.” For Rooney, the shift in recording was revolutionary, relieving years of frustration, although Flatts fans barely noticed the subtle difference.

“They talked about that a lot,” says Phyllis Stark, executive editor of country music for Chicago-based radio-info.com. “Honestly, fans don’t sit there and look at the liner notes. They care whether they’re hits — and they were.” Rascal Flatts’ seven studio albums have been unusually consistent, barely varying the formula of super-polished harmonies on ballads and rockers.

While more recent albums such as last year’s Nothing Like This haven’t sold as many copies as Me and My Gang or 2004’s Feels Like Today, the band remains as popular as ever. Justin Bieber invited the trio to sing on his single “That Should Be Me” this year and Flatts performed on The Oprah Winfrey Show during the host’s final week last month. Flatts Fest, co-starring Sara Evans and others, is an all-day event with a dunk tank, horseshoe games and a wedding chapel named after the band’s single “Why Wait.” “They’re absolutely still at the top of their game,” Stark says.

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