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http://www.countrystarscentral.com/ladyainterview.htm
"Lady Antebellum Interview
© Picture used with permission
Country Stars Central would like to introduce HOT NEW band Lady Antebellum to our readers!! This sensational trio consists of Charles Kelley, Dave Haywood and Hillary Scott (The daughter of Grammy Award-winner the lovely Linda Davis). Together they create glorious harmonies and possess a unique stage presence. Their current single “Love Don’t Live Here” is rapidly climbing the country charts while their debut video of the same name maintains the #15 spot on GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown!! They are currently on tour with mega-star Martina McBride serving as her opening act this spring and have plans to release their debut album later this year. It’s a pleasure to speak with Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum for our exclusive interview!! Watch out country music, Lady A is ready to ROCK and ROLL!!
(CSC) 1. Tell us about the recording process of your debut album and what can your fans expect to hear from it once it’s released?
(Lady Antebellum)
We’ve had some great fans from day one all around Nashville, Ohio and the few other places that we’ve played so hopefully they’ll finally have something in their hands to listen to. We started recording back in July and then we went out on our radio tour when we were pushing the single “Love Don’t Live Here.” We were touring the country just meeting all the radio stations. After the tour we got back in late October and finished the rest of the album. It’s amazing!! It’s one of the neatest and coolest projects I’ve ever been a part of. You get there at ten in the morning and go to your little booth in the back and I get my guitar out and play with everybody and then we’ll do our singing a few days later. We had our producers Paul Worley and Victoria Shaw. Paul’s done all the old Dixie Chicks, Sara Evans and Martina McBride albums. He’s amazing!! He just has brilliant ideas and just the way he gets the sound out of everything, it’s just kind of unheard of. So, we are officially done as of last week. We finally finished it and it will be coming out on April 15th.
(CSC) 2. This year has taken off at quite a fast pace for you so far. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
(Lady Antebellum)
Getting to do what we love is just the greatest! This Martina tour is pretty unbelievable, it really is! We got the call late last year while we were on the radio tour. Being able to share the stage with her and listen to her while she’s playing her set and thank Lady Antebellum is just crazy to hear that out of her mouth plus being able to get to meet her and see her around here on tour. I’d say by far this Martina tour is just a complete honor to be a part of!
(CSC) 3. Tell us about your first meeting and how you came together to create the trio now known as Lady Antebellum?
(Lady Antebellum)
Charles and I became friends from growing up together. We’ve known each other since middle school. We both grew up in Augusta Georgia. We went to high school and college together. We both worked in the real world for a year and then we quit. He talked me into moving to Nashville. He was a few months ahead of me. He moved up there to live with his brother. We were out one night and Hillary spotted Charles and they got to talking about doing some songwriting. So Charles brought Hillary over to the house one day and just the three of us sat down and the very first song we wrote is a favorite to this day. It’s a ballad that we play called “All We Ever Need.” It’s one that we play on the Martina tour. So after that first day of writing it clicked and we hit it off as friends and especially musically, we hit it off with writing songs as songwriters together. We didn’t actually play as a group, we were just writing to write songs for solo projects or just maybe to pitch songs to other artists like a lot of songwriters do in Nashville. We’d written about ten songs and realized that we had a bunch of songs so we decided to play a show and see how it would go. We just did a little show in Nashville and we had about twelve people come and they said that they loved it and we had a blast doing it. After that first show I think we felt like we were on to something. We started the group and here we are today!!
(CSC) 4. You are currently on the road touring with one of the best in the business; powerhouse vocalist Martina McBride!! What is it like playing these massive venues each night and what have you learned from watching Martina perform?
(Lady Antebellum)
It’s funny, playing the large venues. I actually get less nervous doing it in front of seven thousand people as opposed to seven best friends, you know? Getting to play in front of a crowd is just the best exposure in the world. Being able to watch Martina each night evolves your song writing. I’m always watching Martina from the side of the stage and you get to see what the people and the fans respond to. I think it evolves your songwriting skills to hopefully create better music that people can have a reaction to. Seeing her do it every night as a pro, I feel like I’m in little league watching the Braves do it!!
(CSC) 5. Who are some artists you have been inspired by in the country music circle?
(Lady Antebellum)
All three of us definitely pull from a lot of vocal groups. The ones that we all have in common are The Eagles, and the Allman Brothers Band. I know Hillary grew up listening to her mom. She’s a country artist named Linda Davis. She grew up listening and being on tour with her mom and Reba. She’s always been influenced by Reba a lot; her songs, staging and what she does. She also likes Gladys Knight and old mo-town. We all listened to a lot of different stuff. Charles, I know, did listen to a lot of southern rock growing up, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band. He’s got a great kind of grit to his voice which he pulls from his influences. We all love harmony and singing harmony and having all the voices as much as we can. It’s definitely a lot of the vocal groups. I personally loved James Taylor growing up from a guitar point of view. He’s just got some of the best guitar playing and songwriting.
(CSC) 6. How would you best describe your music to people that have not heard it before?
(Lady Antebellum)
How about awesome!! Honestly we just try to create songs that we believe in and stuff that’s true to us. We wrap up all our influences into one. Hopefully it will be something people will enjoy. We try to create music that we enjoy and we try not to put on some kind of facade or just create stuff to make people laugh because we think people will like it. We want to enjoy our music and like the lyrics we create and make it natural to us. Hopefully people will be able to relate to that!
(CSC) 7. What can fans expect to see and hear at your shows and what are some of your favorite songs to perform LIVE?
(Lady Antebellum)
That first song we wrote called “All We Ever Need” is probably our favorite to perform. It’s just a big moment. I play the Piano, Charles and Hillary duet. They have battling vocal parts back and forth on it. It’s an emotional song about a first love, and a lost love. Hopefully people will just come to the show and check it out. We try to do a lot of high-energy stuff. We’ve only got about twenty minutes to perform so we’re doing five songs. We pack as much as we can in the five songs on the Martina tour!! We love a lot of energy and our single is probably the best to perform in concert. Just the whole ending on our single, we really like to pack a lot of energy into it to get the people clapping!! That’s the last song that we do on the Martina tour so we always get a good response from it. A few people have heard it and there are always a few fans in the front row singing along every now and then.
(CSC) 8. What are some of your goals that you hope to achieve in the next two years?
(Lady Antebellum)
That’s always a tough one. We were able to play the Grand Ole Opry last year. That was a big number for all three of us. We’d also like to be acknowledged for things we do and get some recognition for the NEW album. We’ve worked so hard on it ever since July and we’ve been creating these songs for the past few years. We’ve been in the studio for half a year and we have put every ounce of our energy and creativity into the album. If there’s a way to get some recognition for that, I think it would be a huge goal and an amazing thing to strive for!!
(CSC) 9. You seem to have a popular following that view your You Tube videos. A lot of funny things seem to happen in them!! What’s the funniest/oddest thing that has happened while you’ve been on the road?
(Lady Antebellum)
You’ll have to look at it if you haven’t seen it yet. There’s this video from Chicago we filmed while we were out at the big bean downtown on Michigan Avenue. I had the guitar in my hands and we were going for a radio visit to US99 and I said “Guys let’s just play a song here for the big bean.” I figured all the tourists might think it’s funny and maybe we could make five dollars so we put the case out. We start playing this song and sure enough half way through it this big security guard came over and stopped us in the middle of the song. In the middle of the song she’s asking us for our permit and we’re like told her we couldn’t find it. She ruined the middle of the song and there were six little girls watching us and yelling for us!! They were cheering for us. That was probably the craziest thing. Make sure to look for that one on You Tube. It’s pretty funny. Being out in front of the big bean and getting busted!
(CSC) 10. What would you like to tell your fans and what can they look forward to next from Lady Antebellum?
(Lady Antebellum)
Well, we’re going to be releasing a NEW single sometime in the next few months. I’d just like to tell our fans to follow us online if they can. We have so many videos on the site. We do a webisode for every single show and make a video for it. We like to goof around on it and thank the city that we are playing in. Our fans should find us on our official website, face book and MySpace and be our friend. We try to put everything we can up on the internet and have good material people can follow online.
For all things Lady Antebellum please visit their official website here; http://ladyantebellum.musiccitynetworks.com/"
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Lady Antebellum Interview
Feb 27 2008, 10:54 AM
