Are Darius Rucker + Hootie and the Blowfish Getting Back Together? [VIDEO]

It was four years ago that Darius Rucker released his first country single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," after leaving Hootie & the Blowfish. Now after a few No. 1 country hits, the singer-songwriter admits he isn't ready to say goodbye to Hootie!

Here's what Darius told Billboard Magazine:

There's one more Hootie record and tour that we're going to do. I don't know when, because country music is my day job -- it's what I want to do. We'll probably always be a band. We've got two shows in August, we do about four or five dates a year. We'll do another album and tour for a year, then I'll be right back to this music."

While Darius has be in Nashville, he has been amazed to learn how much of country music has been influenced by his band.

When [Lady Antebellum's] Charles Kelley and I first met, he sent me a video of him at 13 with his brother [Josh Kelley] and one of their friends, and they're playing 'Hold My Hand.' The first thing that Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show told me when we met was, 'I told my sister you were doing my song ['Wagon Wheel'], and she said, 'no way,' because that record was so big in our house. She just didn't believe it."

Even so, Darius believes if Hootie & the Blowfish debuted now, the group wouldn't be heard on the same radio stations that played "Hold My Hand" in 1994. He feels the band would have to be a country band. He did admit that they were as close to country as you could be, that's why he started singing country because he felt like he wasn't doing anything different.

Check out some Hootie and The Blowfish!