Chris Tomlin & Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard Join Skip & Amy for Exclusive Interview
When Skip & Amy recently welcomed Chris Tomlin into the studio, the award-winning worship leader happened to bring along a friend. Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line (FGL) made a surprise appearance on the K-LOVE Morning Show. Hubbard appears with fellow country star Thomas Rhett and Tomlin on Chris’ latest single, “Thank You Lord.”
During the interview, the two friends share how they first met while on vacation at the beach. Tomlin walked into a gym where Hubbard was the only other person working out, and they immediately hit it off.
“Because of you I picked up the guitar. Because of you I fell in love with music. And through your music I fell in love with Jesus… And that’s when my passion for music really began,” Hubbard tells Tomlin, adding, “You’re a big, big part of why I’m even doing music in the first place.”
Hubbard grew up in church and learned to play guitar by strumming worship songs, many of which Tomlin had written. During college at Nashville’s Belmont University, he and his future FGL partner Brian Kelley led worship before going on to become the first and only country act to earn two RIAA Diamond-certified singles with their mega hits “Cruise” and “Meant To Be.”
Hubbard and Tomlin admit that when they first connected and started writing songs together, they never envisioned making an album. They were simply attempting to merge their respective genres. That organic experimentation led to the full-length project, Chris Tomlin & Friends, and a sister Summer EP filled with collaborations from some of country’s best and brightest, including Lady A, Brett Young and Russell Dickerson, among others.
“I think sometimes we put everything in a genre or in a box, and this was a moment to say, ‘You know what, the Gospel of Jesus is for…everybody,’” Tomlin remarks. “The ground is level with Jesus—it’s all the same. So connecting with people in that way has been really special.”
The two artists also recount the inexplicable magic they felt the first time they joined forces live when Tomlin led “How Great Is Our God” mid-way through a Florida Georgia Line concert in Atlanta. A few weeks later, they did it again at a show in Las Vegas, bravely taking a very Christian message to a very country audience.
“It’s not a coincidence that we met,” Hubbard says. “God’s up to something really cool, and Chris has been bold enough to say, ‘Let’s lean into this and see what God’s got up His sleeve.’”
Tomlin echoes Hubbard’s enthusiasm adding, “God is up to something huge, and He’s going to get His message to people in incredible ways—in ways we never dreamed.”
