Darius Rucker details multifaceted journey to healing in memoir 'Life's Too Short'

Darius Rucker is self-aware that he's 58 years old and in possession of a singular baritone voice that has, in two separate genres, scaled the heights of what authentic Black soulfulness can achieve in contemporary music.

"Life's Too Short," Rucker's new memoir, deals not so much with that singular acclaim.

Instead, it presents an honest, raw reflection of events behind the scenes during the five-year swing when Hootie and the Blowfish sold 25 million records between 1995-2000. The book also delves into the stress-filled years between 2000-2010, and his eventual induction as a Grand Ole Opry member and 10-time country chart-topper. In the country genre, he has sold an equal number of singles to Hootie's album tally from a decade prior.

The book is available via HarperCollins Publishers' Dey Street Books.

"My kids are adults and it was time to really tell the story," offered Rucker, when asked about why the book was being released now. He spoke to The Tennessean while backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, where he's been a cast member since 2012.

He's been married, separated and divorced, and has come through it all as an artist renowned for both his art and his philanthropy.

Compiling his four-decade career into a 256-page book (written with veteran biographer Alan Eisenstock) took 18 months.

The conversation with The Tennessean allowed Rucker to reflect even deeper on how, after being fully revealed, his legacy now appears in a more vivid rendering than ever before.

The highs and lows of the 'Hootie' era

Hootie and The Blowfish ween't just successful because the band's mix of collegiate Southern house party blues with late-80s-era Southern rock. Rucker beings to his music a tender-hearted nature that was hardened from being the son of a father with a wandering eye. The book reveals his father had multiple children by different mothers — all while married to Rucker's mother, Carolyn. That history adds a level of bittersweet gravitas to songs like "Hold My Hand" and "Let Her Cry."

The music is also widely accessible. "I Only Wanna Be With You," for instance, blends a blues-rock standard informed by The Black Crowes with Radney Foster and Nanci Griffith's rustic, red-dirt soul.

In total, Hootie and the Blowfish's best work is, like Rucker himself, on the surface understated but, at its heart, incredibly connective.

The performer notes that being so swept into the hustle of his career kept him from understanding the magnitude of his evolution from playing college bars at the University of South Carolina to filling 80,000-seat football stadiums less than a decade later.

It's also under that contemplation that Rucker loudly cackles when asked about the incredible levels of alcohol and drug abuse associated with his time with Hootie and the Blowfish mentioned in his memoir.

Yes, at the height of Hootie and the Blowfish's initial run, he once purchased somewhere in the vicinity of $30,000 worth of ecstasy in one transaction outside of his tour bus.

The Department of Justice notes that ecstasy is an "inhibition-reducing stimulant and psychedelic that produces an energizing effect, distortions in time and perception and enhanced enjoyment of tactile experiences."

A 1996 concert review published by The Spokesman Review of Spokane, Washington offered a caustic takedown of the band:

"Hootie and the Blowfish are the Wal-Mart, homogenized version of American roots music. Sure, the band can delve into country, bluegrass, folk, blues and rock 'n' roll, but their interpretation of the respective genres is shallow and pedestrian."

"It's hard to hammer on a band whose members seem like four of the nicest, most charming and most humble characters you could ever meet...four happy guys playing relatively happy music making everybody feel happy. That's why they appeal to 40-year-olds as much as they do 10-year-olds...Yet safe music doesn't always make for good music."

'Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll'

The band's career was defined by a stunning trio of once-in-a-lifetime hits weighed against harsh reviews and declining sales.

It built to a moment when Rucker's passion for his career hit rock bottom, which, according to him, should have placed the band's initial hiatus in 2005, not 2008, as it occurred.

"It got to the point that every time I got on a tour bus, I wanted to be at home and as soon as I got home, I checked out of being at home," he said. "Sure, I loved my kids and my wife, but living two lives led to my darkest and lowest times."

"Man, that was really tough to write about," said Rucker, sighing. "My ex-wife (Beth Leonard, from whom he was divorced in 2020) did everything to make my life great and I did everything in my power to (mess) it up."

"You can hear about the 'sex, drugs and rock 'n roll' of the music industry, but it's different when your life becomes all of the KISS lyrics you grew up loving," he said. "Eventually, the partying and women find a way to humble you and make what the job of — and not the song lyrics about being — a rock star not fun anymore."

"You're left trying to ingest anything and everything you can into your system to chase the emotions that made you want to do this in the first place," added Rucker.

Country music and salvation

The 16 years Rucker has spent as a mainstream country music artist have served to restore and heal his connection to his life and his career.

"A great country song can make nothing else in the world matter for three and a half minutes," says Rucker, whose cover of Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" being an 11-times platinum-selling success is proof alone of this notion shining through in his own career.

"Hell, the chapters (in 'Life's Too Short') are named after song titles because, for the most part, so many of the great songs transcend everything, even if only for a moment," he said. "And in my life, especially now, that's become more important than ever."

He demurred when asked how he learned to be a leader after first learning to follow in so many iconic footsteps.

"I am a leader out of necessity," Rucker said.

"I was the second to the youngest kid in my family and I was depended upon to be the man of the house," he said. "I've always had a strong work ethic, known exactly what needs to be done and always pushed to make that happen."

Charley Pride, country radio and the relatable value of hard work

More than anything, he hopes his work ethic is what he hopes other creatives might mirror in their work.

Rucker laughed when asked about his initial 2012 meeting backstage with Charley Pride at the Grand Ole Opry.

He recalled arriving at the venue 90 minutes before having to perform and talking to Pride for the better part of the next six hours, only interrupted by their scheduled moments to sing. Both men, he said, were aware of the other's importance in Black and country music history.

However, it became quickly apparent to both that they were more concerned with how their work was being done than with the leadership expected by their groundbreaking existences.

They agreed that perhaps their desire to work more than their desire to attract attention to their work had led to neither of them ever being featured on the cover of Ebony or Jet Magazine.

He doubled down on that notion when asked about his success at country radio, which, similar to Pride, was built on solid relationship-building. He achieved this by consistently visiting over 130 radio markets nationwide, resulting in three consecutive chart-toppers and five million singles sold.

Felling as though he could not rely on his success in Hootie and The Blowfish to push himself to country renown, he also recalled Universal Nashville label chief Mike Dungan urging him to meet with radio executives everywhere to humanize and ingratiate himself to programmers.

"People needed to go from hearing that I was a superstar making a country record to knowing me as a humble country artist," said Rucker.

Rucker's lifelong country fandom, which had led to him unexpectedly taking the same radio tours his heroes had to take, made those experiences tolerable.

He also discovered how his close-knit Southern family roots, which included five other brothers and sisters, complemented the country industry's core value structure.

"My interactive skills, plus the way I handle myself and treat people benefitted me in those boardrooms," Rucker continued. "I share so many core values with many in country's industry — that's benefitted my longevity in the genre."

Rucker's influences, in their truest light

"For better and for worse, I'm at a place in my career where I can't be pigeonholed, in any respect, by who I am, what I sound like, or what I should or should not be doing," he said. "Now, my influences can shine through in their truest light."

He paused and recites lyrics from "Never Been Over," a ballad regarding his divorce from his 2023-released album "Carolyn's Boy."

"We've been holdin' on to love so long / that we don't know how to run...Splittin' up friends / Splittin' up records / Puttin' up walls / Burnin' down letters / Grass is greener cause there's something better / Waitin' down the line..."

"That's what doing the work on myself through my autobiography has given me the ability to sing," he said. "Being that honest might be hard, but it's also fun."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Hootie and the Blowfish's Darius Rucker talks new book, music