ABC/Image Group LA Last year, pop hitmakers The Chainsmokers teamed up with Kelsea Ballerini for the hit “This Feeling.”  It was actually The Chainsmokers’ second foray into country: they’d previously done a song with Florida Georgia Line. Now they’re eyeing a different country star for yet another one.

“We’re open to it,” says The Chainsmokers’ Drew Taggart. “We’ve been talking to Thomas Rhett for awhile, trying to figure out something with him.”

While TR is a country phenomenon, he’s also had some success on the pop charts. A few years ago, his song “Die a Happy Man” was a top-25 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and his current single, “Look What God Gave Her,” has reached the top 40 and is still climbing.

“What’s cool about the potential of working with him is, I think we see eye to eye on what we wanna do with a country artist…it’s the same [thing] that he wants to do with a non-country artist,” explains Drew. “We’ve been writing a bunch of songs and sending them back and forth.  Maybe it’ll never happen, but hopefully it does.”

Drew says The Chainsmokers are all about crossing genres, and they’re glad that so many other artists are willing to do it, too.

“We grew up liking every genre of music and I feel like that’s pretty evident in a bunch of the songs we’ve made over the past few years,” Drew says, noting, “We feel really lucky that we live in a time where country artists are open to working with us, and people in hip-hop and people from pop.”

You can tune in to see Kelsea perform with The Chainsmokers Sunday, August 4 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC’s annual CMA Fest special.

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