NASHVILLE, TN  [Friday Aug.10.2007]  /WMQT.com/ -- According to Jay DeMarcus and Gary LeVox they were cousins drawn together by very similar backgrounds. Gary and Jay, second cousins and close friends grew up in Columbus, Ohio. "I grew up in a very, very musical family, both my mother and father sides," says Jay DeMarcus about his musical roots. "My earliest memories are of us sitting around the living room on Friday and Saturday nights and everybody coming around to the house and picking up whatever instrument was laying around and playing music all night long. My father played music all of my life, in bars. That's what I remember him doing. My mom played music too. She was, in fact, Country Music Queen Of Ohio, 1969. She was offered a record contract with RCA at that time, but decided she wanted to raise a family and not be a country music singer." "My story is almost exactly the same as Jay's," Gary told us. "I have a very musical family, my dad and my mom. Our mothers were cousins but close as sisters. We spent a lot of weekends at Jay's house as kids, doing kid stuff and making music," he adds. "Just as Jay was over at his house playing music; I was at my grandfather's house picking and singing. We'd sing 'The Old Rugged Cross' over and over again. I would sing that until I was just blue in the face."

Wanna own a piece of Rascal Flatts?

More on Rascal Flatts