A dozen years on from the band’s first hit, 2007’s “Love Don’t Live Here,” Lady A has a good sense of what suits them best. Their ballads—lustrous works of soft-rock theatricality whose male-female harmonies swell with melancholy yearning—were what initially put the trio on the map. Over time, the Lady A repertoire expanded to include burnished takes on homey folk and rhythm-powered party tunes and other textures that filtered into the country mainstream in the 2010s. But partnering with a new label, Big Machine, and a new producer, Dann Huff, one of Nashville’s leading studio architects of contemporary country pop, for their eighth studio album Ocean has given the group—Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley, and Hillary Scott—a chance to reflect and return to an emphasis on the emotive. “What got us to this point in the early years was just writing and recording what spoke to us,” Haywood tells Apple Music. “We really tried to capture that earlier sound that, I think, had people fall in love with us in the beginning.”
The band has always functioned as a songwriting collective, but, paradoxically, on what Kelley describes as a “more open and honest and vulnerable” album, the mixture of carefully selected outside material and group-penned originals is roughly half and half. The aim was to assemble songs that could be sung from a posture of soul-baring. “None of us are going through things that somebody else hasn't gone through,” Scott says. “I think to be brave enough to talk about it, that just builds connection between the three of us as a band and with our fans. Just to be able to put their own story into it, but then also feel like they're grasping a deeper understanding of who we are as artists.” For this deluxe edition, Dave Haywood talks through the four new songs and two alternate versions that have been added to Ocean.
Heroes (feat. Thomas Rhett)
"We've known Thomas since he started, and man, I'm excited to finally have something that we've been able to do together. This was a song that Thomas had written. He wrote it with a handful of other guys on a writers' retreat. Charles was a writer on it as well. And just being able to walk through all of the legendary artists that we've lost that have influenced us is such a neat story to tell. I love being able to tell the story of those that really influenced who we are as musicians and artists. And I think it's a very reverent-sounding song. The piano feels very old-school and like an old waltz, and it really just kind of takes you on a journey through all these different artists, whether it's Tom Petty or so many other greats that we lost that have influenced who we are today."
Champagne Night
"I love the show Songland. I love that it gives people a peek behind the curtain to the songwriting world. We're songwriters first and foremost; that's always been what we've been. So being on the show, that song came in with a totally different title and different melodies, but the meat and potatoes of it was there. We loved it and we thought immediately, 'This could be something great for Hillary, something in the live show we could do, whenever we get back to live touring and stuff.' And so, yeah, we took it, tweaked the title with Shane McAnally. Even during a pandemic, it felt like a fun song to crank up to have a moment to escape from everything that's going on too, and just to have fun with."
Underwater
"It stays in the water theme of the Ocean record. We recorded this one originally with Dann Huff, when we recorded the entire record. And at some point in time, you just get to the point where you have your full album and there's a few that are on the cutting-room floor, but not for any lack of quality. We just felt like we had this slot originally filled on the record, and now that we're doing a deluxe, we felt we needed it included. It's written by Jon Green and a couple other great writers. We really just had fun working on the musical arrangements with the guitars and the drums, electric guitars and cool synth and keyboard parts."
Let It Be Love
"I had just built a studio in my basement; it's been kind of a dream project for me. Ever since we've started, I've been doing a lot of our demos and love working in Pro Tools and recording and just doing everything I can from a production standpoint. That's really my heart, my love, in addition to songwriting and stuff. Once the pandemic hit, I obviously had a lot of free time to work in the studio. And so we got to work and we wanted to put together a version of all of our band guys and us, all singing separately. So, this is recorded completely remotely—every single person recorded their part individually, from their own home, even Charles and Hillary, using an iPhone microphone from their houses."
Champagne Night (Tiki Bar Version)
"We've played that song a handful of times live, and it always has this kind of reggae feel to it. And so I got with my buddy Dave Thompson, who's a great writer and producer in Nashville, over in Berry Hill. I sent him the files and he got out some really cool drum sounds, even some timbales and some really cool percussion, and we just kind of had fun with it. We have a little tiki bar we sometimes set up backstage at our shows, inspired by Kenny Chesney when we toured with him years ago. It just felt like one of those versions you'd crank up at a little backstage bar."
What If I Never Get Over You (Live From 3rd & Lindsley)
"3rd and Lindsley is where we got our record deal when we started, back in 2006. We would play there every week or two and just would try out new songs. We did a show to promote the Ocean record there, with our band. And 'What If I Never Get Over You' has been a great, almost like a relaunching song for us. I grew up listening to all kinds of live records, so I love any chance to include a version where you've got fans and cheering and clapping and just the ambient noise of an audience. It's a really cool honor."