| Interview: Hello, LADY ANTEBELLUM. |
| Written by Shahlin Graves |
| Monday, 03 October 2011 23:30 |
 Within nine seconds of meeting LADY ANTEBELLUM, members HILLARY SCOTT and CHARLES KELLEY unknowingly adopt a local colloquialism, gleefully bandying it about as an insult while sampling one of New Zealand's local delicacies. "Jayf-fah?" asks Kelley, to which Scott responds with a giggle... "You're a jaffa!" DAVE HAYWOOD completes the trio - who not only finish each other's sentences, but talk in unison as well. Coup De Main had a delightful post-show chat with the band earlier this year back in April, the morning after they had conquered Auckland's The Civic theatre. This is what happened... COUP DE MAIN: This is your first time here in New Zealand! Are you excited/happy to be here? DAVE HAYWOOD: Absolutely, we had a great show last night! We were just blown away by the way that everyone was responding. We’ve had such a warm welcome, so that’s been great. They were singing back all the songs [last night]. CHARLES KELLEY: I was [just] going to say - at one moment we put the mic out for everybody to sing in a chorus in ‘Need You Now’ and it was really cool. CDM: I heard that you dived into a little bit of a Justin Bieber cover last night... are you considering becoming a full-time Justin Bieber covers band? CHARLES KELLEY: No, no! <laughs> I can’t remember how that started?! I think I was teasing the crowd that we didn’t know what we were going to play and so we just sang a bunch of Justin Bieber songs and of course Hillary started singing... HILLARY SCOTT: <sings> "And I was like baby, baby, baby, ohhh..." CHARLES: And then the whole crowd was singing... HILLARY: They were singing along too! I thought they were just going to laugh at us and be like: "Oh my gosh, what did you just do?!" But everybody loves The Biebs.  CDM: It’s been a pretty big year for Lady Antebellum - you won five Grammys! Was that a dream come true? CHARLES: That was a trip. Honestly! DAVE: We are actually in the middle of recording our third record right now, so when the Grammys came up we had just kind of started recording, we had no idea... and we didn’t expect any of those awards by any means. And for us to know that these songs that we just sat in a room writing, that people are responding to them around the world whenever we're touring and to get recognised for those Grammys as well! They gave us a new energy going back into the studio so we went straight back to Nashville, straight back into the studio with a new energy after being recognised at the Grammys, which felt great. CDM: What other highlights have you had so far this year? CHARLES: This is going to sound cliché, but being able to take this trip to Australia and New Zealand has been... we’ve been looking forward to it ever since we found out we were going to be coming and this is the farthest I've ever been. We went to London last year and that was fun, but we weren’t there very long so this is about a three week run in Australia and then here in New Zealand. It’s just wild to see how this kind of music has given us the opportunity to travel the world. Things I thought I would never be able to do and here we are, pretty cool! CDM: The word Antebellum translated from Latin means "before the war" - but what does it personally mean to you? CHARLES: We had taken these pictures in front of these Antebellum [style] homes and we just thought it had - obviously we are a country music band - we thought it had a very country feel to it and for some reason it had a cool ring to it. There’s really no cool story behind it, we just thought it sounded kind of cool. CDM: What would you consider to be the qualities of a Lady or Sir Antebellum? HILLARY: <laughs> I would say these boys are very chivalrous, they are very Southern - Mom and Daddy raised them right! They could definitely have existed in the Antebellum-era. They could have! They are really amazing guys.  CDM: Going back to your third album, what can you tell me about it so far? CHARLES: It is going to be amazing. No! I'm kidding!! We are a little over half-way done on it, it’s got a few similar feeling songs than the last records, but it’s got a couple where we have gone down a road that we’ve never been down before. There’s a song called ‘We Owned The Night’ that has a very different sound for us and there is a lot of nostalgia on this record for some reason, it’s almost like we’ve been looking back and just where we’ve been and when life was a little simpler, all of this is great but it definitely makes you reflect a lot I think, when you’re on the road travelling so much and so there are a lot of songs about what it was like in high-school and just looking back at that time. CDM: Do you have a favourite yet? HILLARY: I don’t think I can pick a favourite. CHARLES: They’re not done, there’s going to be a couple... it’s always the songs that aren’t singles that are my favourites. DAVE: We did a couple new ones last night at our show here. CHARLES: There’s a new one called ‘Just A Kiss’ that we are excited about. There’s a song called ‘Cold As Stone’ which is kind of a dark song, I bet it won’t be a single but it's one of those [that] so far I’ve been listening a lot to from the songs that we’ve done. CDM: Apparently you'd written fifty new songs for this album! How do you pick which ones to record? CHARLES: Half of them are crap though! <laughs> DAVE: You don’t want to hear the ones we don’t pick. We just write a lot. When we were out on the road last Summer we would write a couple of times a week or whatever and we ended up compiling like fifty total songs. I think obviously we try to pick the best ones and it comes out to be a core group of fifteen songs dwindled down to. We live with these songs, do a really rough literally iPhone recording of them and keep them in iTunes and listen to them and see what grows on us and see what we still like when it comes to the time to pick them for the album. We try to pick a combination of things that we feel represent us, things that have different Charles/Hillary on a lead or a duet, or what we want to say lyrically as well. CDM: How different is it when you are writing alone or together as a band? Or with other songwriters as well? DAVE: We normally just write the three of us, or sometimes with somebody else. I think we write so much better when we write together. I don't speak for them, but personally I don’t feel like I write anything that well by myself, but when we are together it’s just a really great chemistry and a great collaborative process. A lot of times we will bring out other people and they'll come out on the road with us, there is probably seven or eight people we are really good friends with and we'll kind of rotate or alternate them coming out. It’s a great energy with the people that we’ve written with – like ‘Need You Now’ with Josh Kear, he’s a good buddy, we’ve written a couple new songs with him for this album. It keeps us on a schedule to write when we're out on the road as well. CDM: If you could write with any songwriter alive or dead, who would it be and why? DAVE: Dolly Parton. For two reasons... HILLARY: <laughs> Well there's two of 'em, so there's your two reasons. CHARLES: Paul McCartney! I’ve got one of his songs 'Blackbird' tattooed on my arm. HILLARY: <starts singing ‘Blackbird’> DAVE: That would be an awkward writing session if you went in and he looked at your arm... "What's that on your arm?" / "I have something you said on my arm." CHARLES: Yup, that was a good mockery of me. HILLARY: Gosh, it would be fun to write with Elvis. Just to look at him, he’s so handsome!  CDM: How do you feel about artists like yourself and Taylor Swift playing country music to the ears of people that might not normally listen to the genre traditionally? CHARLES: It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision as such, the genre has just opened up so much - and Taylor Swift has just busted the doors wide open for a whole audience to come in and so has Keith Urban and acts like that. I think in general, country music the sound has brought in so many influences over the past ten years, it's got so many pop influences, rock influences, R&B influences - but the core is always about the song first. I feel like the thing that sticks out about country music when you listen to it is that you can always understand what the lyrics and the story is about, it’s not just about melody, it’s about the core of it - there’s got to be a song there. Rarely, is there a song without some great lyrical content that’s going to do well in country music. CDM: Do you think it’s that lyrical honesty that makes fan relate to Lady Antebellum so much? LADY ANTEBELLUM: <speaks in unison> We hope so! <laughs> DAVE: I think [in] all of country music, that’s what people find so relatable, I feel are the stories and the lyrics. I think that is what makes it so universal around the world - that genre. CDM: Hillary and Charles, you both have family members that are also musicians, was that a good education for you watching their experiences while you were growing up? CHARLES: I think so, my brother [Josh Kelley], when I saw him out there living his dream I thought: "Gosh, it's possible!" I think it gave me the courage to move to Nashville. I might not have done that if I didn’t have him encouraging me to do it. He had just moved to Nashville, so Dave and I were able to live in his place for a year for free which was nice! It’s one of those things that we had a realistic view... he’s had a long up-and-down road with it and we knew going into this that it wasn’t going to come easy, so the fact that everything has happened so fast for us we realise that it’s a rare thing and we try and not take it for granted, but hold onto it. HILLARY: And that’s the same with my parents, just a very realistic view of what it is and what it isn’t. And if you’re not enjoying it or enjoying the people that you are experiencing it with then it’s not worth it, and you just can’t... life is about the relationships that you have and the journey that you take with those people, you can’t expect the lights and the stage to always fill you up, so it’s made me really appreciate just who I’m in this with. And how much fun it is, and I think that’s another thing with your brother Josh [Charles' brother], he’s just one of the most optimistic people and always fun-loving and always about having a great time, so I’ve learnt that from him. CDM: And you Hillary, having gone through 'American Idol' auditions, did that motivate your work-ethic? HILLARY: Definitely! That whole experience... I tried out for that show twice and didn’t make it past the first round both times. That's one thing of a lot of things that people don’t realise about those shows, is that you have to make it through two or three different rounds before you even see the judges - so I auditioned for the interns and production assistants both times and didn’t get past the first round! So it definitely was heartbreaking but a great experience nonetheless and it just wasn’t my story and that’s okay. CDM: Quick game-time! Say one thing about the person on your left that no-one else knows... HILLARY: One thing about Dave that a lot of people might not know is that he is very sweet. Not everybody knows that. DAVY: About Charles that nobody knows? If he spills a drop of coffee on his shirt he will change it. CHARLES: That happened a couple of times recently! Hillary, that nobody knows... when she grew up she actually lived on a tour bus, so she was highly prepared to be on the road on as kid. LADY ANTEBELLUM - 'HELLO WORLD'...  LADY ANTEBELLUM's new album 'Own The Night' is out now - featuring the singles 'Just A Kiss' and 'We Owned The Night'.  |
