HOW TO GO
What: Lady Antebellum
Where: Riverbend Music Center, 6295 Kellogg Ave., Cincinnati
When: May 17, 7 p.m.
Cost: $28-$58.75
More Info: (513) 232-6220 or www.riverbend.org
Every band has a different philosophy. Some are more insular, less concerned with retaining fans or even being especially entertaining onstage. Others, such as pop country trio Lady Antebellum, consider themselves to be a live band, and tend to tailor their songwriting around the live experience.
Last September, the band released their sixth album, “747,” which, according to Lady Antebellum’s guitarist/pianist/mandolin player Dave Haywood, is the consummation of that philosophy.
“We’re on the road a lot and playing live is our bread and butter,” he said, speaking in advance of Lady Antebellum’s show at Riverbend Sunday, May 17. “We like writing ballads and nostalgic songs, but we felt we needed to push ourselves out of that. So many times onstage, we’d get a big, high-energy moment and we’d feel like we needed another one, and we asked ourselves, ‘How do we do that?’ With songs like ‘Bartender,’ this album really lends itself to the live environment, and our shows are now the most high-energy we’ve ever had. Now, the ballads are the big moments because there aren’t so many of them.”
Because Lady Antebellum has always carried a strong pop/rock vibe, they’ve been dogged by the “are they country enough” question almost since the beginning, though Haywood said that comes from the music industry more than the fans.
“There’s no doubt that we have a lot of different elements,” he said. “We all grew up listening to classic rock, Southern rock, and we like a lot of current pop music. When ‘Need You Now’ came out, we weren’t sure if country stations would play it. But it took on a life of its own, and ended up on a lot of different kinds of stations, and earned us fans in different formats. We weren’t expecting that. But at our core, we’re a country band.”
As mentioned above, while many bands are relatively blasé about how well any new material is received, resigned to a ‘damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t’ culture, Haywood said Lady Antebellum cares deeply about what fans think.
“It’s a pretty modern approach,” he said. “With social media, it’s hard to hide. So while we always try to do a left turn with each album and make sure what we’re doing is authentic and personal to us, we always walk a fine line between that and what the fans want to hear.”
One of Lady Antebellum’s most striking features is how their love songs, whether coming from the male or female perspective, always feature a male and female vocal. The odd effect is that of men and women empathizing with each other’s heartbreak, and the gender-driven ways with which members of both hurt each other.
“That goes back to the first song we wrote,” Haywood said. “Charlie (Kelley) took the first verse and then asked Hillary (Scott) to take the second verse to see what it sounded like. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, can we have two lead singers tell the same story?’ We fell into it organically.”
Despite being in the midst of a high-energy tour, Haywood said it’s not too early to think about what comes next.
“We write a lot on the road,” he said. “We have a mobile recording studio with Pro Tools. We have the tools, we just have to wait for the inspiration. Time will show us. We never really know.”
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