| LADY ANTEBELLUM - exclusive 'Own The Night' track-by-track. |
| Written by Q&A: SUPPLIED |
| Saturday, 17 September 2011 17:23 |
 LADY ANTEBELLUM explain their new album 'Own The Night' - due to be released in New Zealand on September 19th and featuring the single 'Just A Kiss' - track by track exclusively for Coup De Main... 1. 'We Owned the Night' HILLARY: Well that song is probably one of my favorites, just from an overall vibe standpoint on the album. I think that it’s just a very anthemic melody and it’s easy to sing along to and I’m really looking forward to performing it live in our tour. Charles and Dave wrote that with Dallas Davidson and I think what makes it so unique is they wrote it on the mandolin, which makes, I mean, it completely changed probably how you approached writing, how you approached writing a song because it’s just such different voicings and what Dave was playing. I mean, I love that song. It reminds me of a lot of moments, not necessarily with a guy in a romantic sense, but just nights in college, you know, before I met Charles and Dave and our career took off, like hanging out with my friends and stay out and staying up till four in the morning and just laughing and having a great time. It’s not so much about a romantic night to me so much as just those nights that I remember growing up that were just like, just you feel like you could just float off the ground it was so much fun and there was so much joy in it. 2. 'Just a Kiss' CHARLES: 'Just a Kiss' is our first single, and you know, [we're] hugely excited. We just found out, it’s our first number one off this record, you know with our first single so you know, very excited about that. It was a song, rarely do we walk out of a writing session and go: "Alright that song is going to be on the record or that’s going to be a single." We walked out that day and it was the last song we wrote for this record and we knew it was going to be our first single and so we are very excited to see, what it’s done. We knew it was a great representation of this album and a nice lead-off single and two, a topic that we haven’t really talked about much, you know, we have a lot of heavy songs, and a lot of heart-break songs and it was nice to have a nice love, you know, ballad or mid-tempo I should say, whatever you want to call it. DAVE: We performed it for the very first time on 'American Idol', and we talked about it, the fan response to that, it has been so cool to watch all kinds of YouTube videos pop up with people covering this song, you know obviously before the record’s out, and you know, to hear what people are saying on Facebook and Twitter and all over the internet, that they feel the passion that we try to capture in the song and obviously Hillary recently getting engaged is a huge, I think, emotional part of this song and emotional part to the driving force behind when something’s wonderful and not wanting to mess it up. 3. 'Dancing Away With My Heart' CHARLES: You know that song we wrote with a guy by the name of Josh Kear, who we wrote 'Need You Now' with? So, that was one of the few, I think, when we were writing the song that we knew that it was going to be a song that was going to be special to us on the record. One of my favorite lines is: "To me, you will always be eighteen and beautiful and dance away my heart." You have that image and so it definitely takes me back to middle school and you know, like Dave said the gymnasium. HILLARY: Acne and braces. CHARLES: Yes, exactly, but even, as cheesy as it sounds, the prom and that moment and just all those things, and hopefully, I think we’ve all been there and have that person, that you know, doesn’t mean anything more than just: "I wonder what they’re doing now? I wonder where you are?" There’s some lines like that in the song and you hope they’re doing well and it is kind of funny, but it’s all part of who you are and it makes you who you are. It's great experiences, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and there’s nothing to read into it more, other than, you just hope they’re doing well and part of your life.  4. 'Friday Night' DAVE: We just fell in love with it, I mean it’s a good fun, we’re building a show for the Fall and building a tour and to have some of these great kind of, you know, just rockin’ songs. I guess I can say it’s rockin’ because we didn’t write it so yeah, that would be pretentious if I said that. HILLARY: Oh yeah. CHARLES: If you said it was the greatest song in the world, then that would be pretentious, if you wrote it. DAVE: But I mean, I think it’s just a great, it’s a good feeling one. We had a song called 'Looking For A Good Time' on our first record. Just every now and then try and have one of those, it’s kind of just a no-brainer. It’s a good, kind of that Summer feeling song and kind of refers to a relationship as well, but again it’s just a great, up-tempo, fast, roll the windows down kind of vibe. 6. 'Cold As Stone' CHARLES: 'Cold As Stone' is one of those songs that we’re really, we think is one of our favorites - we wrote that out on the road with a songwriter named Hillary Lindsey. She’s one of those writers that is able to really tap into a lot of that, I don’t know, despair, it seems like. She definitely has that kind of gear where she goes in and pulls out some real raw emotion and when we wrote it, it was an idea I think that started pretty naturally. Dave was peddling around on guitar and I think with it too, our voices, Hillary and I’s voices, specifically when we do duets like this, most of the time we tend to take the melody and up-a-up a lot because she sings a little higher and I have to kind of have to get up there. For this one, I think it was me that, I was able to kind of get a little lower and so was Hillary and I think it made it a little more raw, you know. We wanted it to sound pretty dark and almost, Hillary always uses the analogy of 'Cold Mountain', if you have ever seen that movie. HILLARY: Haunting. CHARLES: Yeah that kind of haunting feeling. The harmonies are kind of, we try to keep them really rich, really low and dark. I think that out of all the songs, the production on this, it was pretty simplistic, other than of course, the strings. DAVE: It’s my favourite. I think Paul Worley is great about having these little acoustic work tapes that we had, 'Need You Now' is an example too, but taking you know, 'Cold As Stone' after we had written it and building this beautiful, very country, a lot of country instruments, obviously the Dobro, and just a lot of mandolin and acoustics, and beautiful string arrangements, which we helped kind of work with as well. I mean there’s a pennywhistle on there at the very end. For us, it is a very musical song. HILLARY: An artistic... DAVE: A very artistic song; we wanted to try and capture that musically as well as lyrically. 7. 'Singing Me Home' HILLARY: 'Singing Me Home' is another song on the album that is just really fun and it’s also another one of those moments in time. It’s such a visual song too; you just picture this really cute couple sitting in the car together like driving down the road, listening and singing along to one of their favourite songs on the radio. It’s just a very sweet song that gives a really sweet mental picture, you know, a mental image of what’s really going on and the harmonies too on that song. It’s just one of those, as my grandparents would say: "It’s an easy-listening kind of song." You can just hit repeat a few times and you don’t get sick of it. CHARLES: I think of a song like that, again, just getting back to why we wanted to call the record 'Own The Night', again live in the moment, you know. It’s one of those songs that we were writing that I can just picture again, those days, where maybe it was, I don’t know back in high school or college and just road trips, and just having these moments where you just... windows are down, it's Summer, you got your feet sitting up on the dashboard. HILLARY: Not a care in the world. CHARLES: Yeah, not a care in the world. I love that line, she sang it a little off-key: "Every girlfriend I ever had is the worst singer in the world..." And there was something kind of cute about it, and it was like: "Yeah I like that." You know, giving it her all. It’s like my wife now, she’ll sing a song at the top of her lungs and she’s horrible, but she’d give it her all and there’s something very cute about that, and I love that. I don’t know, it's just one of those songs, you know again, to balance out some of that heavy and some of that ballad stuff, it's nice to have just a fun song where you can kind of just zone out. Cause I think music doesn’t always have to make you think too much, sometimes you just need to release, you know?  8. 'Wanted You More' HILLARY: This song, 'Wanted You More' is, I think, one of the coolest stories on this album, and it’s because it started out as just kind of a groove in sound-check. And then we walked off stage after sound-check, walked into the dressing room, and we literally wrote this with out entire band. And so that means there’s a lot of co-writers on it. CHARLES: Yeah, seven writers on it. HILLARY: Seven writers. But it was so much fun because we’re really close with our band anyway, and feel a really close bond with them, but that just amplified that, and everybody had a say and had their input on lyrics and it was just really fun to get in and be able to record that and share that with them. DAVE: I think that was the only time we’ve ever done that before, I mean literally just jam at sound-check and get an idea. But it was a really cool and different experience to just take what we’re doing for fun and turn it into something that we’ll cut for the record. 9. 'As You Turn Away' CHARLES: The song, 'As You Turn Away' I remember when we wrote that we were out on the road and a songwriter friend of ours, Monty Powell, was out with us and Dave and I had this melody idea, and Hillary, I think, was getting ready. We were all in the same room, and we’re writing that, and we start singing the chorus melody and I think I had: "Nothing more to say, nothing left to break." And then it was kind of like one of the first songs we ever wrote again. Hillary walks over and goes: "Wow, I really like that." And she was at a place in her life where she had just gotten out of a bad break-up. And so she really kind of helped bring this heartbreak into that song, in a spot in her life and make it a little bit, for me at least, brought out that a lot. She definitely took a lot of that lyric direction to where it needed to go, where I don’t know if I was in a place to have taken it there, or if Dave was in a place to have taken it there. So she responded to it and we kind of really let her lead where we were going with this song, and it was a cool story. HILLARY: That song is very personal, and honestly, every single one of those lyrics, it was true in that situation, in that moment. That person left and I never saw them again and haven’t heard from them since, and it was just a very "cut – move on" thing, which is good and I think that allowed me to get over it a lot quicker but at the same time it’s also so excruciatingly painful when that happens because it’s like you don’t have that closure, you know, and that’s truly what that song is about. That’s another one of my favourites on the album, but it’s also kind of, Charles was saying earlier about other tracks on this album, it’s like you go back to that place and it has no relation to where you are in the present but if you let yourself go back there you’re like: "Ugh that was not fun, that was a painful season of my life." But, worth it. CHARLES: You know what’s funny about that song too? Every time in the car, the last chorus, it’s very stripped down until the last chorus and the full band explodes. And the first couple of times I put it in my car it almost scared me cause it comes out of nowhere and the full band goes, "Pshh" you know, really like that. So you fans out there, you have to let us know if we bust any speakers because you almost want to turn it up cause it’s really soft and you want to hear every word, then all of a sudden by the time the third chorus comes, if you have it too loud we will blow out some speakers. So you might have to get insurance on this record. 10. 'Love I Found In You' HILLARY: This song called, 'The Love I Found In You' we wrote with Patrick Davis, who is a dear friend of ours, not only a co-writer. That song is pretty spot on to where I am in my life right now. And just recently being engaged, and planning a wedding, and I love that song. That’s one of those that selfishly I’m like, "That’s where I’m at!" out of all the other songs on the record.  11. 'Somewhere Love Remains' DAVE: 'Somewhere Love Remains' is one we wrote as well with Monty Powell. He was on the road with us and again, I think a lot of these ideas start musically and all three of us tend to pull from our experiences. Not exactly down to the core of what one of us went through but all three of us had a feeling of going through kind of an intense fight in the relationship and being able to take a step back and breathe in, breathe out, we can get through this. We still have something strong that’s worth fighting for. Again, something we’ve all been through. And musically it started with the piano, and we had a little drum loop. We have this software system out on the road. CHARLES: Yeah, this one’s cool. I remember Dave, didn’t you go back home and do this and then bring it? DAVE: I think it was just in the afternoon I made up a drum loop and just started playing this piano riff over and over. CHARLES: We were really excited about it though. I remember us being really excited and we all got together. You know what I think too, for me, I relate a lot to this song because my first year of marriage I was out on the road a lot and there were moments where it was really hard. And you have these moments and it’s like you have to step back, and like the lyrics says, "Breathe in, breathe out, before you turn around, slow down a little bit..." because sometimes we can get very ahead of ourselves. Especially early on we don’t know how to compromise when it comes to a relationship because we’re not used to it. This is the first time you’ve had to compromise on such a big level. I grew up and I learned how to compromise and become a better person. It became so much easier. And you have to let yourself get over those humps, and I think this is one of those songs that hopefully people can bring them a little bit of perspective in these things. 12. 'Heart Of The World' HILLARY: Right now, I’d have to say my favourite is the last track on the album, 'Heart Of The World', which is an outside song that Tom Douglas co-wrote with Scooter Caruso, and I can say it’s one of the most brilliantly written songs I’ve ever heard because I didn’t write it. He has such a way of saying things to make you just see this beautiful picture in your head, and it’s just beautiful. And I told Charles this the other day, I said, I feel like I’ve never heard him sound better than his vocal, on this whole album, but especially that song. I think our vocal performance, all of us, on that song just really captures, when people listen to it I hope they go: "That’s Lady Antebellum. That’s their vocals blending together." And I can say this because I’m so in awe of it and I’m so humbled by it, but it’s like, you never know how your voices are gonna sound with people that aren’t your family. There’s this magic in family harmony, and somehow we’ve been given the gift of having that and not being related. And I don’t take that for granted and that song, I think, makes me appreciate that so much. |
