Lady A’s Charles Kelley may have grown tired of talking about his past.
“I’m hoping the story will change to where I don’t have to anymore,” Kelley, 42, tells PEOPLE about her previous battle with alcohol. “It’s almost like I have this weird little fear of talking about it also many.”
Certainly, even though he’s currently celebrating more than a year of sobriety, Kelley finds himself often speaking out about difficult topics like addiction, rehab and recovery, in hopes that he might be able to help someone else.
But maybe enough is enough.
“Part of this journey for me is to make sure I’m a part of that story of helping to take the stigma out of what it means to recover from alcoholism and overcome it, and the fact that it can be done,” Kelley says with conviction. “So there’s definitely that tug and pull that I kind of struggle with emotionally, wanting to just change that story and let it focus on the music.”
Lady A’s Hillary Scott Says Charles Kelley’s Sobriety Has Affected The Band In ‘Unbelievable Ways’
Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood of Lady A.
Alyssa Gafjken
So we’re going to change the narrative.
As 2023 draws to a close, Lady A find themselves in a pretty sweet spot in their career, with controversy and struggles firmly in their rearview mirrors, instead heading in a direction that brings the legendary country trio back to the sound their fans fell in love with in the first place .
In fact, when fans showed up during the country trio’s Request Line tour, their voices were heard loud and clear when they pretty much begged for Lady A’s “Love You Back” to be released as a single.
“We started feeling the backlash early on,” Lady A’s Dave Haywood, 41, notes to PEOPLE about the song written by James McNair, Lindsay Rhimes and Emily Weisband. “We even had a fan event during CMA Fest week in June, where we had a closed-door party to listen to some of the new stuff we’ve been recording, and they were blown away by the song, too.”
Perhaps the excitement surrounding the song stems from the fact that “Love You Back” is so pure Lady A, evoking memories of past harmonies.
“Our biggest songs, and the ones that really resonate the most, are back-and-forth duets,” Kelley says. “They feel like Lady A songs. The whole theme of the rest of the music we make is going back to those warm tones of ‘American Honey’ and ‘Need You Now’ and ‘I Run to You’.”
Throw in a mandolin and “Love You Back” officially takes you back to the familiar sonic dirt track that Lady A built her career on.
“I think musically you really want to match the lyrics,” Haywood says of the song, which Lady A debuted during a recent performance on NBC TODAY show. “When you look at these lyrics, they just hit deep and take you back to that lost love and take you back to that despair. I think the goal is always to find instrumentation that goes with the lyrics and kind of a soft country feel.”
Lady A Talk Maren Morris Follows Her ‘Heart’ and Quits Country Music: ‘More Power to Her’
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(499x0:501x2)/Lady-A-121423-1-02b083f04b4b43f0be23a3510c220bc3.jpg)
Lady A – “Love You Back”.
Alyssa Gafjken
Certainly, the topic also hits a nerve, even though all the members of Lady A are happily married.
“You think you’ve moved on, but then everything comes out and you’re completely confused,” Lady A’s Hillary Scott, 37, tells PEOPLE of the fitting lyrics to “Love You Back.”
“You go down that rabbit hole of, ‘I wonder how they are.’ And then you have that moment: ‘But this is over. I have to move on.’ I think that’s what the song touches on. That’s a big message when you dissect it.”
As well as the great message that lies in the story of Lady A.
Says Haywood, “Now we can look down the road a lot longer knowing we have a good healthy dynamic between the three of us.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education