Lady Antebellum is back with first album on new label
Country music stalwarts Lady Antebellum returning with a new label, a new approach and a new record We’ve been a band now for 13 years, and I think we just got to a point where it was like, ‘OK, what do we want from this band moving forward?’
They say a change is as good as a rest.
And for veteran country vocal trio Lady Antebellum — Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — changing labels after 13 years led to a new album, Ocean, that has real emotional depth.
“For us there’s been a lot of freedom again and permission to really chase the art, find music that really speaks to us,” said Haywood, 37.
“Our new label (Big Machine) has been fearless. They’ve kind of given us that excitement and permission to dig in musically.”
Added Scott, 33: “They are the most present songs that we have written. And Dave said it best. It’s like, we could not have released this record 10 or 13 years ago. It’s a lot of the way we feel right now when we walk out of our house and leave our kids and home to come do this. There’s a lot of very specific parts of what it’s like to be human. There’s just more to talk about.”
We caught up with the fivetime Grammy Award-winning group, rounded out by Kelley,
38, while they were in Toronto recently.
Q Ocean, your eighth studio album, has been described as one of your most honest and vulnerable. Why did that happen now?
Kelley: I think it’s just where we are in our lives. We’ve been a band now for 13 years, and I think we just got to a point where it was like, ‘OK, what do we want from this band moving forward?’ And I can speak for myself. I was definitely going through some changes with even finding my spirituality a little more, kind of who I wanted to be moving forward. And it started creating this theme of honesty and self-awareness and it was like, ‘Well, you can’t have a bunch of songs like this and then all of the sudden throw a bunch of fluff on top of it.’
Q Between the three of you, you’ve got six children now and Hillary, you had identical twin girls, Betsy and Emory, just last year.
Scott: Twins are magic. My girls are identical, so they look very similar. Everybody has a hard time telling them apart. But their personalities could not be more different. And it’s just neat to watch them. Their non-verbal communication is fascinating. They entertain each other. To think about never knowing life without someone else. The way that they feel. I can’t wait until they’re older and can tell me how they feel. I’m really excited about that.
Q Ocean also marks the first collaboration ever on a Lady Antebellum album after you hooked up with fellow country vocal group Little Big Town on the song, The Thing That Wrecks You. There’s three of you and four of them so was scheduling a nightmare?
Kelley: The schedule was not easy but we’ve been talking about doing something for the longest time. We’ve been friends of theirs and we were on the same label for at least five or six years. We really just needed to find the right song and the right time. And I kind of didn’t let it go. The hardest thing was trying to find the right day because they’re on tour, we’re on tour and we found a day that worked. And just to be in a room with them and see how they break up all their parts. It’s like they already knew where they were going to jump into the song even before they got into the studio.
Q You also recently sang a twosong suite of your new single, What If I Never Get Over You, with pop star Halsey’s new single, Graveyard, at the CMA Awards. What was that like? Scott: We were really open to it from jump but the biggest thing for us was, ‘Are the songs going to mesh?’ Because it’s just got to feel organic and natural and when we kind of dug into our song and hers — that’s a punny thing, dug into it — but it really worked. Lyrically and sonically, her song was a step-off of ours in a different key, but it transitioned well. It was a dream come true to share the stage with her.
Q The CMAS also opened with a salute to women that included Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles wearing a statement dress asking country radio to play female artists as much as male artists. What did you think of that? Scott: Yes, us as women, we have to rally together and wave the flag and use our voices but it also takes really supportive men, like I have on either side of me right now, to support great artists, great songs, and getting radio to play them.
Q When will you tour Ocean in Canada?
Haywood: We haven’t announced the tour yet but we definitely have plans to come this way (in 2020). Amphitheatres and arenas, the whole thing.