So, what if you're a red-hot country band that's flying high and you want to fly higher?
Simple.
You walk into a bar.
That's exactly what happened to platinum-selling super trio Lady Antebellum - proving that sometimes it's the smallest of moments that spark monumental changes. Such a moment happened one night when the group's Charles Kelley walked into a dance bar after a Lady Antebellum concert. As Kelley soaked up the bar's music and atmosphere, he suddenly got the feeling that he and bandmates Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood, who are all hit songwriters, needed to compose faster, fiercer songs that could live in the dance bar's environment.
That moment was a turning point for the band.
"We started discovering more of an 'in your face' sound that we'd never explored before, so we began writing towards that mentality," recalls Kelley.
The spark generated in that dance bar lit a songwriting flame that resulted in "747," the group's fifth album. Lady Antebellum may have been formed in Nashville, with all three singers harmonizing for the first time around Haywood's piano, but they earned their stripes on the road. That's where the trio truly came alive, mixing the rootsy stomp of forward-thinking country music with the swooning, sweeping sound of three voices that were born to mesh.
Written during the 2014 Take Me Downtown Tour, "747," whose title rustles up the image of a fast-moving plane bound for bigger, better places, doubles as a metaphor for the group itself. After spending years at the top of the country charts, Lady Antebellum was ready to pull up the wheels and climb even higher.
The first step toward making that transformation was relying less on the band's history with mid-tempo ballads - although two softer songs, "One Great Mystery" and the nostalgic, nocturnal "Damn You Seventeen," did make the final tracklist for 747 - and focusing on more explosive material. Kelley, Scott and Haywood invited some of their favorite songwriters to join them on the road, too, resulting in a series of late-night writing sessions on the band's tour bus, with everyone traveling together from one sold-out show to the next.
"Being on the road and writing new songs, we found ourselves wanting more of that high energy material," Haywood remembers. "We came up with songs like 'Bartender' and 'Long Stretch of Love,' with that big feeling that really hits you hard in an arena."
"Bartender," the first single of "747," is another game-changer. Driven forward by banjo, percussion and an insatiable chorus, the song finds Scott thinking back to her days as a single woman, when a double shot of whiskey could wash away the memory of a no-good ex.
"I thought it was such a great curveball to put out first," declares Scott. "I'm a mom, and I love that role more than anything, but I'm also a woman who lived a lot before she was a mom. 'Bartender' has allowed me to get outside of my new role, and it's so fun to perform."
"'747' is a snapshot of where we are as a band," adds Kelley. "It's us wanting to solidify our place - to stay at the top of our game, for lack of a better way of saying it. You know, when you start playing these arenas and these amphitheaters, and the fans are gravitating toward this music, it's a drug. You want it. You want to stay there. As a band, we're ready."
And the band's new adventure - flying even higher than before - all started when Kelley walked into a bar.
"747" will land in stores on Sept. 30, 2014.
