These country stars want to avoid Amy’s kind of Heart Break
WE have a saying in the West that you should always try to ‘keep it country’. If you have ever been to a Lady Antebellum performance you will know exactly what that means.
Outside of the Pale there is a deep love affair with country music. Nathan Carter, Mike Denver, Una Healy, Donna Taggart and Lee Matthews fly the Irish flag but we are a huge destination for the finest of Texas too. In October, one of Nashville’s touring juggernauts, Lady Antebellum, will play the 3Arena in what promises to be the biggest country music show of the year.
Over the last decade, country trio Lady Antebellum have experienced a whirlwind of success, fuelled by platinum records, number one singles and a monster hit with the 2009 drunk-dialling anthem ‘Need You Now’.
They have done this by keeping it country —or no bu ***** t, honest music. When the band members announced they were taking a break in 2015, they assured fans it was just temporary. True to their word, after working on individual projects (Hillary Scott recorded a Christian album with her family; Charles Kelley released a solo album; Dave Haywood got into producing), they were back together. I got the chance to catch up with the band’s star singer Dave Haywood who told me all about life on the road for Lady A and how they are really only starting their musical journey, refreshed from a career break.
‘It has been an amazing ride and we are a couple of weeks into the tour, which takes us all the way to Dublin in October and we finish in South Africa. For us there have been a lot of contributing factors that have kept us grounded.
‘We push each other to just focus on the music and to figure out how you keep that fresh. But keeping the music the number one focus has always been our goal. I feel like we are almost in the middle of our journey and that creative break we took was a really important moment for us. It allowed us to reset. And I think we have a long way to go yet and we are starting chapter two of Lady Antebellum — and it proved to be a really beneficial thing for us to get back to music.
‘If we hadn’t taken the break I think we would have written some lesser quality of songs. We had time to live life and focus on things that were important for us and as songwriters we came back with a huge well of songwriting ideas.’
The group’s new record, Heart Break, is something of a renaissance for the group. During their break they had children and wrote solo music but ultimately rekindled the fire that would get them back in the studio. The new record is a country belter with tracks that ultimately embrace the storytelling base line that makes this genre so soul-searingly personal.
Take the last song on the record called Famous, a cautionary tale about the perils that exist behind the veneer of fame. They were inspired after watching Amy, the 2015 documentary about the late Amy Winehouse. The tragic singer’s death — from alcohol poisoning at age 27 — struck them as incredibly sad and avoidable as they reflected on the importance of having a support system as they became stars.
THE title song, Heart Break, is another track with a dual meaning. It’s not about conventional heartbreak like most country ballads. It is instead a heartwarming story about how a break from, say a long term band, can heal the heart — autobiographical as you can imagine.
‘As songwriters, we always try to tap into those feelings of being single and the ups and downs of heartbreak. The neat thing for us is that the title track is a little spin on the phrase heartbreak. It is actually two words and giving your heart a break, instead of jumping from one thing to the next.
‘There is a direct parallel between our careers and the song. We had to take a bit of a heart break from Lady A and get a reset and we feel more refreshed now than ever.
‘We look at love lost and love gone and love gained on this new record but for us there is no actual heartbreak. We are all happy and have some cute little kids running around.’
I’ve been to a Lady Antebellum show before and as a music spectacle it is unrivalled. The Irish crowd have a deep affinity with the trio, which comes across in the show’s live energy.
‘I can’t say enough about playing in Ireland,’ Dave adds.
‘It’s one of our top five places to play in the world because of the fans and they are into the music so much.’
In fact, the band have talked about the love they felt from their Irish fans in many interviews before.
Dave explains: ‘For us, as artists, it is the best feeling in the world when fans know the entire record. It is a special feeling to be halfway around the world and to have the crowd singing the last song on your album. It is an out-of-body experience getting to play there and we don’t take it for granted.’