Lady Antebellum: Topping Charts with the Truth

By Tom Roland

© 2010 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association, Inc.

When Lady Antebellum sat down with songwriter Josh Kear in February 2009 to write a song about a sexually-charged, late-night phone call to an ex, the trio encountered a dilemma centered on a lyric for the second chorus, in which Charles Kelley confessed, “It’s a quarter after one, I’m a little drunk and I need you now.”

They all loved the line but they weren’t sure how it would be perceived by others with a stake in their success. “We were like, ‘Is our label going to get mad?’” Kelley recalled. It’s not like either the alcohol or the desire alluded to in the words was particularly problematic. But outside of Lee Ann Womack’s “I May Hate Myself in the Morning” and “Last Call,” both of which met resistance among crucial radio programmers, it’s tough to find many successful songs that mix love and liquor so blatantly.

Still, it didn’t take much to persuade Lady Antebellum and Kear to agree that the line belonged in the song. “It was just honest to us,” said Dave Haywood. “I mean, who hasn’t been there? It’s late at night and you’ve had a drink or two and you miss somebody. We didn’t over think it more than that. We were like, ‘You know what? Let’s just write what’s honest and what’s true to us.’ And in reality, we’ve been there and so we put it in there.”

It’s clear that they made the right decision. The executives at Capitol Records Nashville surprised the band when they not only gave a thumbs-up to the song but decided to make it the first single and title track from the album, Need You Now. It spent a whopping four weeks at No. 1 on the Country Aircheck singles chart, lodged at the top of the Billboard chart for five consecutive weeks and earned Platinum digital single sales status just before Christmas — all of which set the stage for a spectacular album release in January, when Need You Now premiered at the top of the charts with 480,922 in sales, more than twice the number for the various-artist Help for Haiti and well ahead of runners-up Lady Gaga, Susan Boyle and Barry Manilow. By holding on to the top slot in the Billboard Top 200 in its second week, the group became the first Country act since the Dixie Chicks in 2006 to achieve that cross-format distinction — and only the sixth artist in the previous year to do so, along with Susan Boyle, Eminem, Jay-Z and a few others.

Obviously radio and the public responded to the song — its message as well as its catchy chorus hook and the powerful vocals laid down by Kelley, Haywood and Hillary Scott. In fact, radio programmer Charlie Cook, VP of Country, McVay Media, uses “Need You Now,” including the “I’m a little drunk” line, as his ringtone and as on-hold music for callers to his mobile phone.

“Quarter after one in the morning, the guy’s sitting there, pining for his girlfriend, and he’s had a couple of drinks,” Cook mused. “Pretty good fodder for Country Music, as far as I’m concerned.”
Expanding on the impression made by Lady Antebellum with this track, Cook observed, “They’re true to their principles. They’re sensitive because of the audience, not because of their experience, and so they said, ‘You know, we just have to go with what we believe in.’ And that worked. That hooked up with the audience very comfortably.”

“Comfortable” might not be the best word to describe the life of Lady Antebellum these days. “Hectic” is probably closer to the mark, and that’s exactly how they want it. Following their selection as CMA New Artist of the Year in 2008 with victories in the Vocal Group and Single categories at the 2009 CMA Awards, they went into heavy promotion for January’s release of Need You Now, earned a high-profile live performance on the Grammy Awards and then headed out in February to open on Tim McGraw’s “Southern Voice” tour. It’s no wonder that when they announced their first headlining date at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, tickets were snapped up so quickly that the band added a second date — both of which were sold out in less than half an hour.
 
Lady Antebellum built this impressive momentum carefully, through lessons gleaned in particular about interaction with fans over the two years since the release of their self-titled debut Platinum album. Much of 2009 was spent on Kenny Chesney’s Sun City Carnival tour, with more than 10 stadiums sprinkled into the schedule. On those mega-shows, they performed in conditions far from typical for gigs — a midday slot in sunlight and sweat-inducing temperatures, for example. The fans reacted positively, though the band did take note and learn from the occasional lulls between songs in the languor of a hot afternoon.

That inspired them to join with Monty Powell to write “Stars Tonight,” a bright, fast-paced song on Need You Now that celebrates the interaction between stage performers and their audiences. “You have to have songs that make people in the absolute back row of the stadium feel like they’re part of that experience,” Haywood said, addressing the intention behind the sing-along chorus, tribal “hey-hey!” chant and promise that “we’re all stars tonight.”

From the start, Lady Antebellum has been conscientious about building and nurturing their fan base, especially via online social channels. Scott first became aware of Kelley and Haywood through MySpace; once they committed to becoming a trio, their Web experience empowered them to build and maintain a community of listeners by simply reaching out. Like many other Country artists particularly of their generation, they’ve become heavy users of Twitter. And they’ve maintained their commitment to upload new Webisodes to their site each week on Wednesday, making the event appointment viewing for many followers.

A strong personal connection to their fans is one byproduct of these efforts. Sometimes it’s perhaps a little too personal — “People wait outside the bathroom stall to shake my hand,” Scott confirmed — but it’s also helped build their community in places they barely even imagined when they were starting out.

The reach of their brand became particularly apparent in September, when they opened for Kenny Rogers at Gstaad, Switzerland, in their first European booking. Mostly locals attended the Friday night performance, but on Saturday ticket buyers arrived from countries throughout the continent. The band was particularly surprised to discover that they weren’t just an unknown opening act; some of those fans were intent on seeing them and were singing every word to their music.
“That was an eye-opener,” Kelley said. “We don’t have distribution over there, but through the Internet they found a way to either listen to the album or have it find its way over to them, the physical CD. To know that your music can have that much reach is pretty wild.”

Far beyond American shores, Lady Antebellum has reaped the benefits of a plan whose key components include connecting online and presenting material that’s as honest as it is accessible.
That’s one reason why “American Honey” was chosen as the album’s second single. Written by Cary Barlowe, Hillary Lindsey and Shane Stevens, it’s a laid-back romantic reverie, whose acoustic textures and down-home fiddle create a sound more traditional than one often hears on today’s Country charts.

“We like to keep people on their toes and continue to try to show different sides of us with what singles we put out,” Scott explained. “It’s pretty conscious that we don’t want anything to sound like the one before it.”

“They were trying to make music that people will talk about 30 years from now,” elaborated Paul Worley, who co-produced both of Lady Antebellum’s albums. “When you go back and look at our influences and the music that we love, a lot of that music was made 30 or 40 years ago, and they want to be in that class of people. Now, whether they make that category or not, only time will tell, but that’s what they’re shooting for and it comes across in what they choose to write about and the sounds that they wrap around themselves. Any music that’s ever made it to that category is music that had risk and the possibility of crash-and-burn failure. But by luck and fortune and serendipity and whatever you want to call it, it broke through.”

Appropriately, breaking through a barrier is the theme of the album’s final, moving song, “Ready to Love Again,” written by all three members of the group with Michael Busbee but drawn from Scott’s personal experience at recovering from a gut-wrenching breakup. In contemplating another possible romance, the singer admits her trepidation, reflects on “building walls” and “the fear of how it might end” and then asserts herself with a figurative step forward.

The song might be about an emotional moment in her life, but in a parallel manner it also reflects the uncertainty that Lady Antebellum experiences now as one of Country Music’s signature acts. Instead of going into creative hibernation as Need You Now ascends, they’re already looking for ways to challenge themselves onstage and in the studio. That, they believe, is a central tenet for remaining vital.

“You get to a place where you’re not afraid to risk failing,” Scott said. “You can’t be afraid because you have to stay true to what your heart says and what you believe in and what you want to say.”