Lady Antebellum Reunite for New Music
When country trio Lady Antebellum announced a hiatus last fall, many speculated that the band was finished for good. Not so, according to the group’s Hillary Scott and Charles Kelley, both of whom say Lady A is already back in business.
Scott was speaking in the CMA Music Festival press room Thursday night (June 9th), just before the band reunited onstage at Nissan Stadium for a stunning two-song mashup with “Burning House” singer Cam, but her encouraging statement was about more than the handful of shows Lady A will perform this summer. She was talking about the follow-up to the band’s most recent album 747, which was released in September 2014. The group announced their hiatus after completing the Wheels Up Tour to support that album.
Each member of the group used their time off to pursue outside musical projects — a solo album for Charles Kelley, a family gospel project for Scott and producing credits for Dave Haywood — but now that time is coming to an end. Scott says Lady A has already begun laying the groundwork for their next record.
“I’ve been busy this week,” she revealed. “We don’t really know how to take a break. An ‘off year’ for us is two albums and 30 shows in the middle of the summer together as a trio. . .[So] we’ve been working and writing some already. We have the fall blocked off for the bulk of it so we’re not in a rush, because we want it to be right. I think we’re giving ourselves the gift of time to find the songs and write the songs. So I’ve been singing vocals this week, but there’s really no timeline. When it’s ready, we’ll get it out.”
Kelley shared similar news on the CMT Awards red carpet on June 8th, acknowledging that they finally had the luxury to record at a comfortable pace. “We’re excited to get back and work on the next record. We’ve already started,” he said. “We’ve always been in a time crunch [before now] and it’s not good to make music in a time crunch. It’s fun to see what we can come up with. I just hope we actually deliver something special.”
Lady Antebellum’s next scheduled show is June 17th at Chicago’s Windy City LakeShake Festival.
Additional reporting by Jon Freeman