Nowadays, Tom Beaupre doesn’t make it back to his hometown of Paoli very often. As the bassist for the hit country-music duo Florida Georgia Line, he was on the road for more than 250 days last year. 
So when FGL plays Citizens Bank Park as an opening act for Jason Aldean on Aug. 1, Beaupre—who now lives in Nashville—hopes to catch up with friends from Great Valley High School’s Class of ’02. “This job keeps me pretty dang busy,” he admits.
Growing up, Beaupre never imagined a career on stage. “In high school, I was definitely more involved in sports,” says the former varsity baseball and soccer player.
Music was always his second love. He played the upright bass for the first time in third grade. “I didn’t start playing the guitar until high school,” says Beaupre, who also played at his church, Paoli Presbyterian. “Then I picked up the electric bass and started playing music and writing songs with friends.”
Beaupre got serious about music in college. “I was about six inches too short to play pro baseball,” he says. “So I figured music was the way to go.”
A year after graduating from Bloomsburg University, Beaupre packed his bags and headed to Tennessee. Surprisingly, though, he wasn’t a real fan of country music. “I didn’t know much more than a Keith Urban song,” he says.
Still, he fell in with Florida Georgia Line when they came to Nashville. And when they decided to hire a band and start touring in 2010, they tapped Beaupre to be their bassist.
“I’ve seen the entire country,” he says of his current gig. “I love traveling, so to be able to say that I’ve been to every state at least once is amazing. I always knew being a full-time musician had to be a lot more fun than getting a sales job, but I didn’t know how great it could be.”
