Currently on tour with Lady Antebellum, Darius Rucker sat down with CBS Local while in New York to discuss life on the road and his recent collaboration with Lionel Richie.

“It’s so much fun for me being out with Lady Antebellum. They’re huge and doing so well. We’re playing big places, selling them out and having a good time,” he said.

“Sitting there watching them, they’re kids. Just watching them go through something I’ve been through, watching them enjoy it. It’s fun for me. I love going out there playing and playing in front of their audience has been a lot of fun.”

While he’s busy working on a new album, Darius explained what it was like working with Lionel Richie on his recent release Tuskegee. One of his idols, he revealed how it all came about.

“I’m sitting in my house and my cell phone rings and I answer it and the guy goes, ‘Darius, this is Lionel Richie.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah right.’”

Having been the target of practical jokes before, he was skeptical.

“It was just wild for Lionel Richie to be calling me and asking me to sing on his record,” he said. “I mean, this is Lionel Richie. I say to people all the time, ‘He’s more than an idol. He’s part of my DNA.’”

Darius cites Richie as being the soundtrack to his life.

“Church to me, every time I say the word ‘church’ or think of church, I think of the song ‘Jesus Is Love,’ because we listened to that song every day before we went to church,” he recalled.

When Lionel asked Darius what song he wanted to sing together, it was an easy decision.

“I want to do ‘Stuck On You.’ Not because it’s my favorite Lionel song, but because I’ve sung that song so many times. In my mom’s car, riding down the road, sitting in front of the radio. I’ve sung those harmonies so many times with him.”

As far as working with his idol, Darius said it was a dream come true.

“For me, to meet somebody who is an absolute idol, who I don’t think I could be the singer I am today without and for him to be much cooler than I ever thought he would be, that was an awesome experience. To know that somebody could be that big and just be a nice guy. That was awesome.”

- Annie Reuter CBS Local