Why did John Rich (Big and Rich) get kicked from Lonestar?

He played bass. Richie McDonald was also kicked out a few years ago and replaced by a Keith Urban look a like. Recently though, McDonald has reunited with them and they have a new single on iTunes.

Their reason for kicking Richie out was because they were sitting around looking at old pictures from the bands early days and remembered how much fun it was before the "Mr. Mom" type songs started coming out. True story. They talked about it in an interview on XM a about 6 years ago.

On the first couple of albums, Richie McDonald and John Rich actually shared lead vocals - one would sing lead on certain songs and the other on others.

The band felt like they needed to lock down to one lead vocalist so that they would have an identity as well as be more recognizable on the radio, and since most of the singles/hits were fronted by McDonald, he was the choice.