In a candid interview with Radio.com Charles Kelley lays down the truth on what really happened with Lady Antebellum & what there plans are in the future.

Here Is The Full Interview…

Multi-platinum country supergroup Lady Antebellum is in great shape; singer/songwriter Charles Kelley is enthusiastically clear on that. It’s true that he’s currently working on a solo album, but that’s just while the trio take some well-deserved downtime between cycles.

That said, he seems to be enjoying working on a lower-pressure project without the high stakes that are inherent when recording a Lady A album. And he’s excited about having recorded a Tom Petty cover with Stevie Nicks (!), and collaborating on “The Driver” with Dierks Bentley and Eric Palsay (yep, he likes vocal trios).

In this interview with Radio.com, he was upfront about the pressures of being in a major band, while at the same time speaking about his love and dedication to Lady A. And although we didn’t speak to his bandmates, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood, they seem very supportive of his project: Scott (currently working on a gospel album) apparently wants to perform “The Driver” at the group’s future concerts.

So, while Lady Antebellum is taking a break, you’re going to be doing a solo album and tour.

We’ve been on the circuit, so to speak, for a while: that hamster wheel of make a record, promote the record, do a tour. Go right back again and make another record, promote the record, go on tour. Rock bands sometimes will take a year or two years to make a record; it’s definitely kind of the country mentality to just hammer it out and keep going.

And we just felt like we were maybe getting to a point where we wanted to step back; as a band we said, “Let’s just take some time, enjoy our families.” Hillary and Dave have little kids, and I’ve actually got one on the way. But they wanted to be able to spend a little bit more time with their families for the first time and not between tour dates.

They know me; I’m ADD. I can’t sit still for too long. I had written “The Driver” and had a couple other songs that I was pretty passionate about and didn’t really know what I was gonna do with them. And it was just a sign that, okay, this is the time to maybe put out some [solo] music.

I think because we’re in such a great spot as a band, that I felt like I could actually try something like this and it wouldn’t be taken for more than it is, which is just kind of some musical exploration.

Clearly, you enjoy singing as part of a vocal trio.

Yeah, well, the funny thing is the rest of the project is just me. I paid for this project on my own. I didn’t want any pressure. If it didn’t come out good, I wasn’t gonna play it for anybody; I just was gonna scrap it.

So the label hadn’t heard anything, and I played it for them. I knew that the song they will want to put out first is “The Driver.” But it was the catalyst for the project. It’s the song I’m probably the most proud of on the project. And it just happens to be that that’s the one with another trio of voices.

But there’s another song with a guest vocalist: a Tom Petty song called “Southern Accents ” with Stevie Nicks. I’m excited about that.

“The Driver” reminds me a bit of Jackson Browne’s ode to touring, “The Load-Out.”

Yeah, for sure. There’s definitely a little “Load-Out” going on in that song for sure. That was one of the things when I started the song, the idea, and I had some of the first verse, talking about the driver who also represents the crew and everybody behind the scenes on tour.

Lady Antebellum work so consistently. Obviously you have a lot of loyalty towards your crew; is the decision to take time off difficult because it means that those guys have to look for a new job?

Yeah, as we were deciding to take time off, that was kind of a concern. We’ve had a lot of guys that we are gonna lose. They’re gonna go work on some other artists’ tours and stuff. And it’s part of the business, but it does kind of break your heart a little bit. I will be able to take out a little bit of the crew and a couple of the musicians from our band, and at least be able to keep some of that ship going.

On my own, I could never get to where Lady Antebellum is. That’s not the goal of this. The goal for me was actually to do something that wasn’t so pressure packed; I could fail and it’s okay. With Lady Antebellum, there’s a little more pressure to try not to fail. And sometimes that’s tough, to make music in that kind of environment, so it was nice to make music without any pressure.

Covering “Southern Accents” doesn’t seem like a huge stretch for you.

Yeah. “Southern Accents” was one of those songs I kind of kept in my back pocket, thinking maybe even Lady Antebellum somewhere down the road might wanna cut it on a record.

There was a version of the song on a live album [1985’s Pack Up The Plantation!], that just blew me away; I like it so much better than the original. It just had so much more life, and the feel of it was so great. And so we actually stayed pretty true to that version; I thought it would make a great country song. Petty later also cut the song with Johnny Cash [on Cash’s 1996 album Unchained, which features the Heartbreakers as his backing band] so I’m kinda treading in some territory that you don’t wanna mess with much.

Every time I hear that song, it just reminds me of my dad and how he grew up. He was one of those guys that really did walk five miles to school, and had to work on the farm after school, and did things like that. So I always kind of picture him in my mind when I’m singing that song.

We didn’t realize that when we cut our vocal, we were in the same studio, the Village, where Tom Petty cut “Southern Accents.” And so we asked, “What room was it?” It’s the same damn room. Kind of a crazy coincidence there.

And Stevie even said, “I can’t wait for Tom to hear it,” and I was like, “Do you think he’ll hear it?” She goes, “Of course he’ll hear it.”

Just knowing that maybe he’ll enjoy my version of it is really cool, ’cause every artist is influenced in some form or fashion by Tom Petty. Especially country artists.

Tom Petty famously criticized all of country music a few years back, did that give you any pause when you decided to cover him?

No, I didn’t really think much about it. I understand people that love traditional country music. I get it. Today’s country music is not the same country music that you grew up listening to. And I think that’s just because everybody feels so constricted by putting these labels on the music anyway. There’s a lot of artists in the genre that aren’t country artists and probably shouldn’t be labeled as country artists, but at the end of the day it’s about getting the music out there.

But no, that didn’t really enter my thought process. I mean, he can say whatever, he can bash Lady Antebellum and I’ll still listen to his music. I’m a big fan; I’m so inspired by his music.

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That line, “There’s a southern accent, where I come from, The young ones call it country, the Yankees call it dumb,” really hits hard.

The line that sticks with me is, “I may go work the orange groves if it don’t freeze,” and it’s like, oh, my gosh, that’s my family.

But yeah, that line, it’s so funny, every time I sing it I’m wondering if someone from the North is like [disgusted sound]. It doesn’t feel like a jab to me; it’s the truth. A lot of people do think when you hear someone with a Southern accent and a strong drawl, they just kind of immediately have these stereotypes. Maybe that reaction is a little dumb or uneducated of them, and that’s not really always the truth. Sometimes it is [laughs]. There are some dumb Southerners.

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Article & Photo Source: US 99.5