I still remember the first time I interviewed Lady Antebellum. It was back in 2010 at City Winery and I spent the entire weekend before my interview watching all of their Webisode Wednesdays, in hopes to find a question or two to ask that they had never been asked before. Though I had only 10 minutes with Lady Antebellum, I managed to succeed. During the height of the popularity of “Need You Now” it was a lofty goal to have, being as they’d done hundreds of interviews before. But I’ll never forget that pause in the interview when I knew I got them thinking.
Nearly four years later to the day, I sat down with the country trio once again to talk about their new album 747. During our chat, Charles Kelley admitted that new single “Freestyle” is the one song he is obsessed with, perhaps as much if not more than “Need You Now.”
He said he was initially hesitant during the writing process (he and his bandmates wrote the track with Shane McAnally) because it was “such a departure” from their previous material. Today, though, it’s one of his favorite tracks to play live.
“The one thing we learned was not to be afraid,” Kelley says. “‘Downtown’ was a good example of a song where at the time when we cut it Hillary was like, ‘I don’t know. This is so different.’ We’ve always found that our biggest and best songs always push us in a different direction. ‘Freestyle’ has this infectious energy to it. [You have to] keep it lighthearted sometimes.”
Watch the video of my chat above and read more of my interview with Lady Antebellum about their new album 747 at Radio.com.
