Kelsea Ballerini

Kelsea Ballerini

Interview

Kelsea Ballerini Talks "Legends," Sophomore Album & Touring

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GRAMMY nominee gets candid on the reality of facing album No. 2 and the challenges of being a tour headliner
Nicole Pajer
Recording Academy
Oct 12, 2017 - 3:38 pm

Kelsea Ballerini’s debut album, The First Time, spawned three No. 1 consecutive singles – “Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Dibs,” and “Peter Pan” -- making her the first female artist to accomplish the feat since Wynonna Judd, in 1992. It also earned her a GRAMMY nomination and an initiation into CMT’s Next Women of Country club. Two years after the release, she performed across the globe, graced the Grand Ole Opry stage, and headlined her first tour. When the promo run ended and it was time to start thinking about album number two, the country songstress found herself a bit intimidated.

I couldn’t even write for six months because I was like “I don’t know where to start,” she tells GRAMMY.com.

When the dust settled and the singer/songwriter began to force herself back into the groove “I was like, ‘Dude, fear sucks. Write a bad song. Who cares? You have to write a bad song to get a good one,’” Ballerini revealed. To bring out her evolving style, the 23-year-old teamed up with several of her songwriting idols to collaborate with, including Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. She also rounded up her favorite Nashville hitmakers and took them on weekend writing retreats. By the end of her songwriting journey, Ballerini went from having writer’s block to having drafted a pool of 200 potential songs for the new album.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Ballerini to discuss what she learned about herself as an artist from her first few years of touring, the secret to writing a killer sophomore album, and how the key to having a successful writer’s retreat is to go into the weekend with a plan.

You recently released your new single “Legends.” How did that song come about?
I wrote “Legends” almost 2 years ago. It was when I was first starting to write for this next record. I was going through a breakup at the time and I had written so many songs about the sadness, bitterness and anger you go through when you experience a breakup. I really wanted to write a song about that moment where you look back on it and are like, “you know what? I’m going to choose to look back on the good parts. I chose to love what we had and really let it go.” I feel like when you accept that is when you can move on. “Legends” was me being like, “I’m going to choose to look back fondly on this.”

How is album No. 2 coming along?
It’s great. I’m so excited!

You had such amazing success with your debut album. Did you feel any pressure to outdo yourself with the follow up?
I did feel pressure. I wrote and recorded a lot of my first album before I even had a record deal so we didn’t even really know that we were making an album. The second record is really the first full intentional album that I’ve made. I’ve known since the beginning of the writing process “you’re writing for your sophomore record,” whereas the first one I didn’t know that. I think it’s definitely more challenging but it’s also way more thoughtful. This album is really thought through, which has been really fun and creative to be able to put together.

Do you have to do anything to push the “I’m writing for my actual album” mentality out of your mind?
Totally. I couldn’t even write for 6 months because I was like “I don’t know where to start.” You sing your first record over and over again for 3 years and those are songs that I wrote when I was 19. I’m 23 now and “who am I now? What do I sound like now?” I think it took me 6 months of being really scared to figure out that voice. I was like, “dude fear sucks. Write a bad song. Who cares? It’s ok. You have to write a bad one to get a good one.” I just let myself write and I ended up writing over 200 songs for this record.

 

What did you do differently in the studio this time around?
I think it was really important for me to just write. I wrote twice a day, three times a day sometimes if I was in Nashville. I did a couple of different writing retreats where I would bring out my favorite writers and we would write all day everyday for 3 or 4 days. I think in doing that, you kind of write to what you want to say. I wrote over 200 songs so a lot of them are not great and definitely not exactly where I wanted them to be but it got me into the heartbeat of the next record.

The hardest part about making this next record was time; I didn’t have a lot of it. I’ve been touring non-stop so it was hard to find the time to be home and just have a day to just write and not have somewhere to go. I think having those writing retreats was the only time that I could just focus on songwriting. We did one right before the cutoff of the album and 2 of the songs that we wrote on that are on the record.

What are your tips for making writing retreats successful?
I think what helped me is I wrote until I found a couple of core songs. My core songs for this next record were “Legends,” “Graveyard,” and “Unapologetically.” Those were the 3 that as soon as I wrote them, I was like, “OK this are your pillars. This is your cornerstone.” So I would go into write and I would play these songs and I would say, “OK this is where this record is going. This is the overall heartbeat and vibe and sound of it” -- just so we could all get in the same headspace. That’s what we did on the last record too. We wrote “Love Me Like You Mean It” and “Peter Pan” within months of each other. And I played those two songs in every writing session that I went into and I was like, “This is what my record. This is what we’re building out from.”

You co-wrote “Legends” with Forest Glen Whitehead. Was it fun to return to the studio together?
Forest is my musical partner. We’ve written 100 songs together. He helps me find my place as a songwriter. He co-produced my first record and co-produced this one. He is just very hands-on with my records. We wrote “Legends” with Hillary Lindsey and she is the reason that I’m a songwriter. I remember being absolutely obsessed with her. This was our first co-write, which is really really special.

What are some of the things that you learned from working with her?
With the first record, I couldn’t get in the room with a hit songwriter to save my life. My first album was me and my friends who hadn’t had any success. The second record, I wanted to keep that but also add in some outside voices to try and hear what they brought. I have songs with Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, Josh Osborne and Luke Laird.

They brought out something in me where they would say one thing and then let me ramble off a bunch of crazy stuff and then help me sort through it and then let me ramble off. I feel like the best kind of songwriters are the ones that will inspire you and then just let you go.

You’ve described your new music as bolder and a lot darker. Was that a natural evolution?
I feel like listening to my first record, it was kind of like me becoming an adult. In doing that, you have a lot to cover within 12 tracks. I didn’t really allow myself to get too deep because I wanted to talk about being young and being insecure and having my first crush and having my first heartbreak. Covering all of that within 12 tracks, you don’t really get super in-depth. With this record, having already introduced myself to people who have heard the first one, I’m able to talk more about me and life and what’s happened. Even as a songwriter, I’ve been challenging myself to talk about things that I’m feeling. It’s been fun to get a little more in-depth with emotions and life.

How would you describe this new stuff stylistically?
It’s still very country pop. Production wise, it’s very similar to the first one. We love walking that line. Jason Massey who is co-producing this record -- he did the first one as well -- is from Los Angeles and Forest is from Louisiana. They have this amazing roots country banjo heavy sound with 808 synth beat drops when they come together. It’s a cool thing that they do.

You wrote 200 songs for the album. What was the process of distilling that down to the final album tracks like?
I think you have to figure out what you want the album to be. The first one I wanted it to be an introduction. This one, I wanted it to be a chronological introduction of the last 2 years. Once I decided that’s what I wanted it to be, I asked myself, “What are your 4 best breakup songs that you feel really tell the story?” And then it goes into growing up and it’s like “OK what are your favorite life songs that you feel tell exactly where you are at right now?” And then it goes into love and it talks about falling in love and getting engaged and all that. I literally went through all my songs and I picked the best songs of each. We’ll do a deluxe so that will give life to a few more songs.

I love to be a songwriter too so I’m open to giving the songs to other people or getting in the room with other people and writing for their project. I’m so into that, especially now that I’m done with my album!

You were all over the map the last few years touring in support of your debut. What did you learn while out on the road?
I think just how to entertain people. I had never put on a live show until I put out my first single. Opening for Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts, and Thomas Rhett, who have been touring for years, taught me how to put together a show and interact with the crowd and my fans.

You also headlined your first tour.
Putting together a 75-minute show when I had 3 singles out was very intimidating. However, when I actually did it, headlining was the most rewarding thing I’ve gotten to do so far. When you’re on big tours, like right now with Lady Antebellum, the majority of the crowd knows my 4 singles on the radio but they don’t know my record. You kind of forget that your record had a life. But headlining, those people know every word to every album cut. They know the songs that you put on YouTube 5 years ago; they give life to your whole album. It’s really rewarding to know that every word mattered. For me, there are 2 things that no matter how big or small the venue, I always want to have at my show. That’s a really big hype entrance and a really stripped down vulnerable acoustic moment because growing up and going to shows, those were always the moments that I felt the most – the moment before the artist goes on stage and everyone sits on the edge of their chair and that moment where there is a giant sing-along and so much heart to it. I think building those two moments were the most important to me.

What’s next on the agenda?
The album comes out November 3, So I’m very excited about it! 

Kelsea Ballerini, Thomas Rhett Honor Country, Barry Gibb

Midland photographed in 2017

Midland

Photo: The Recording Academy

Interview

Midland: 'On The Rocks' At Austin City Limits

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Country group on why music is essential part of their lives and collaborating with A-list songwriters
Lynne Margolis
Recording Academy
Oct 17, 2017 - 9:40 am

The guys in Midland know they’re in the midst of a moment they’ll only experience once: that sweet spot when a band’s star starts to rise and reality starts to resemble their dreams. Right now, they’re enjoying their growing fame, which began building with the release of their hit single, “Drinkin’ Problem,” and went into hyper-drive with the September 22 release of their debut album, On the Rocks, which entered Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart at No. 2.

The trio — lead vocalist Mark Wystrach, guitarist/vocalist Jess Carson and bassist/vocalist Cameron Duddy — hail from Dripping Springs, Texas, just outside of Austin. But their music owes as much to Bakersfield — and Laurel Canyon — as it does to Texas. Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam (whose song, “Fair to Midland,” inspired their name) and the Eagles form their foundation, George Strait and another inspiration, Gary Stewart, shore it up.

They spoke of those and other influences — and clarified their bona fides — following their Sunday set on the second of two Austin City Limits Festival weekends.

“I want to clear up one thing,” says Wystrach, in a voice that sounds nothing like the deep baritone of his singing. “Each and every one of us has been playing music since we were kids. Jess got into music at 9 or 10 years old; Cameron started in his first band at, like, 11. I grew up in a live country-music honky-tonk, since I was a baby sitting in my mother’s lap. Music has been an essential part of our lives.”

They didn’t come off some Music Row assembly line, in other words. They’ve put in the time, even though each had other career pursuits as well. Duddy, a northern California native, won an MTV Video Music Award for directing Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven”; he also directed Mars’ “24K Magic,” Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” and Jennifer Lopez‘s “Ain’t Your Mama” — and Midland’s “Drinkin’ Problem.” Wystrach, who grew up on an Arizona ranch, acted and modeled (including underwear, though he says he was more often the guy who rode the motorcycle or horse in shoots, and spent far more time tending bar and waiting tables), and cofounded a footwear company, MOVMT. Carson, raised on an Oregon Christmas-tree farm, played in various bands, as did his partners.

They discovered they sounded great together when Carson and Wystrach showed up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to be groomsmen in Duddy’s wedding. They’d all known one another from their years in Los Angeles, where each had migrated in his early 20s to seek a music career; Duddy had been in bands with both. None of them had gotten very far, however; they hadn’t even released any music. But as they blended their voices in the mountains, they decided to give it another shot — together.

“This band felt like the first time that we had the opportunity to really do things right,” Wystrach says. He and Duddy followed Carson to Dripping Springs, where he’d moved with his wife, a horse-cutting competitor. As for why they chose Austin instead of Nashville, Carson explains, “When we started this band, country music itself was not even anything like it is today.”

Revivalists like Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson had yet to appear on the scene, much less sweep awards. “There was nothing in the ether that would have made us think that we could go to Nashville and have any effect,” he adds. “We wanted to play in honky-tonks.”

They got a weekday afternoon slot at Poodie’s, the famed roadhouse founded by Willie Nelson’s late manager. They also played places like the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos, the fabled songwriting incubator where George Strait got his start. When the headlining band and bartender stepped out to smoke cigarettes, Wystrach recalls, Midland found itself playing to the club’s memorabilia-filled Strait shrine.

As he tells that story, he happens to be wearing a Strait-logoed T shirt. The band is somewhat dressed down today, but is known for its love of retro country glam (think Gram Parsons’ Nudie suit).

“We’re pretty unapologetic about having a great sense of fashion,” says Wystrach. “That’s part of the artistry.”

They honed both their look and their art while working their way along the honky-tonk trail. Eventually, they crossed paths with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, who share songwriting credit (as well as co-producing credit with Dann Huff) for several of On the Rocks’ 13 tracks. McAnally and Osborne found kindred spirits in Midland; the first time they wrote together, “Drinkin’ Problem” was the result.

“If you get to be exposed to other great artists who can help elevate and realize your full potential … you’d be a damned fool to not take that up and run with it,” Wystrach says.

But the efforts are truly collaborative, they add. And Duddy emphasizes, “We’re writing music that means everything to us. These are our stories; these are our songs. And we get the biggest kick out of writing together.”

One of Carson’s favorites on the album is “Electric Rodeo,” which describes the ups and downs of their current lifestyle with lines like, “We’re painting on our suits/we’re pluggin’ in our boots.”  

“We intentionally went for a sort of Glen Campbell quality to that song,” he says. It matches the band’s collective personality: partly serious, partly tongue in cheek. And catchy as heck. 

Chris Stapleton Wins Best Country Album

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper

Interview

Alice Cooper Talks 'Paranormal,' Working With Larry Mullen & Bob Ezrin

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Legendary shock rocker also discusses how Mick Jagger influenced his showmanship and how he doesn't let stress bother him
Nicole Pajer
Recording Academy
Oct 12, 2017 - 6:00 pm

Twenty-seven studio albums into his career and Alice Cooper is a songwriting pro. In fact, the famed shock rocker jokes that at this point in his life, you could challenge him to write about practically anything -- and he’d definitely take you up on that. “I can pretty much write what you want me to write. I try to find the punch line first and write backwards from there,” he tells GRAMMY.com.

For Cooper, the process behind every album is different and largely reflective of the chemistry between himself and his co-collaborators and during the studio sessions behind his latest endeavor, Paranormal, the creativity flowed seamlessly. In addition to bringing in a wildcard drummer, aka U2’s Larry Mullen, Cooper also reunited his original Alice Cooper Band for several of the tracks. The outcome is what he calls “an accidental concept album” and “very Alice Cooperish.”

Cooper chatted with GRAMMY.com about the evolution of his live show, his secret to being able to get away with so much on stage without overly offending the masses, and why he’s concerned that the era of rock stars may officially be over.

Walk us through the creation process of Paranormal. I’ve heard that you’ve been calling it “an accidental concept album.”
Well it really kind of was. In fact, we went out of our way not to do a concept. Bob [Ezrin] and I are sort of famous for doing concept albums from Welcome To My Nightmare on and we decided this time to just do a great rock and roll album. Of course, after we got done writing the whole thing, I listened back and realized that every single character has some abnormality that was kind of striking and the only word that I could come up with was “paranormal.” The word paranormal actually means “next to normal,” not being normal, and my whole career has been that. So the paranormal thing just really stuck. It just felt really good. It just seems very Alice Cooperish.

You had some great people contribute to this album – Larry Mullen, Roger Glover, Billy Gibbons. How did those collaborations come about?
Most of the time, when you do a song, then you kind of say, “Boy you know who would be great on this song…” and that’s kind of what happened. “Fallen in Love” was so Billy Gibbons that it was impossible to not make it with Billy. We called him up and he nailed it in two takes. Roger Glover is on the only song on the album that has any prog sort of feel to it, which is “Paranormal.” The Larry Mullen thing was totally different. Bob said, “Let’s do something that is revolutionary for us. Let’s go with a whole different kind of drummer, a drummer that wouldn’t normally play with Alice Cooper” and Larry Mullen was the perfect guy. I’ve never had a drummer who ever came to me and said, “Let me see the lyrics” because drummers usually care about what the bass player is playing. So the idea that he listened to the lyrics and he interpreted the lyrics was really kind of unique to me. I really liked what he ended up playing on every single song. The guy really changed the sound of the whole album.

You’ve put out 27 studio albums. Do you have a standard process of how you tackle writing and being in the studio or has that evolved over time?
When you’re working with different people - I’ve worked with everybody from Henry Mancini to Carole Bayer Sager to Jon Bon Jovi. I’ve written songs with everybody. It’s always one of those things when you write something and you look at each other and you go “Oh yeah.” In other word, that lyric is married to those chords and they really work together. And then there are also times when you look at each other and you go “This doesn’t work does it? OK let’s go onto something else.” You can always feel when there is something wrong but equally, you can feel when something is really right on the money and it just fits perfectly. This album seemed to really write itself. It was very simple to write. I was in the room with four writers who were all experienced writers so we knew when we were up against a wall and we knew when everything was just flowing.

You had the original Alice Cooper band perform on several of the tracks. How did that come about? And was it instant chemistry again when you guys got together?
The great thing about the original band is that when we did break up, we didn’t break up with any bad blood. There were no lawsuits, nobody was angry, nobody was mad at each other. It was more of a separation instead of a divorce so we stayed in touch with each other and that was very important. Neal Smith called me up and said, “Hey Mike Bruce is in town.” And I said, “Well I’m writing for the new album, why don’t you guys come over and we’ll write something?” So, they came over for a week to my house in Phoenix and we wrote about six or seven songs but two of the songs really stuck out as being real potential Alice Cooper songs. It was the first time that I was able to get Neal, Dennis, and Mike all in the studio together in Nashville and then me on the mic. I said, “Listen. Let’s record this live. Let’s not layer it. Let’s do this live.” It just sounded exactly like what Alice Cooper sounded like in 1974. The guys haven’t changed the way that they play. I haven’t really changed the way I sing and then all of a sudden, there it was, it really did work.

Is it harder or easier for you to write songs at this stage of you career?
Well, I’ve written so many songs at this point -- because I do write the lyrics and a lot of the melodies for most of my albums -- that if you came to me and said, “I’m writing a play about an elephant and a giraffe on top of The Empire State Building. Can you write a song about it? I would says, “Well do you want it to be a love song? Do you want it to be funny? Do you want it to be scary?” I can pretty much write what you want me to write. I kind of know how to do it now. I try to find the punch line first and write backwards from there.

You have such a great live band and seeing you with them really gives a new edge to some of your more classic material. Tell us about teaming up with players like Nita Strauss.
Nita is great, I was looking for a shredder, I was looking for a girl that could really shred on guitar. I wasn’t even looking for a girl; I was just looking for a guitar player who was a little more metal than the other two guys I have, because I already have two guitar players. I was looking for somebody who was really going to give me more of a modern sound and I heard her play and I said, “Whoever that is, I want that person.” She came on board and just nails it every night. She’s so good. Every once in a while, you just find the perfect fit and she just fit right into the band. The best thing about this live band is that everyone are best friends. You never hear any yelling or screaming or arguing backstage. It’s always just laughing. That makes a big difference when you’re touring. It just makes everything so easy and it’s like that every single night. If we do 100 shows, it will be like that every single night. A lot of guys when they’re in bands together, ego starts creeping in and soon you have a mess.

Can you talk a bit about the evolution of your live show? You seem to always incorporate the classics like the Guillotine and Frankenstein but then you’re always adding in new elements like the Trump and Hillary parodies for “Elected,” like you did last year. Is each tour different in terms of how you’re curating your set?
Yeah, well the one thing about it is that I know what songs I have to do. It’s not like I have a choice. I know I have to do “Poison,” “School’s Out,” “Eighteen,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” and “Under My Wheels.” Those are the songs that you have to do because the audience really demands it. I put in “Halo of Flies” because I want to show off the band a little bit where they have a long section where they just play and kind of show the audience that they’re amazing musicians. Then you’ve got the straight jacket and then you’ve got “Only Women Bleed” and “Cold Ethyl” and “Feed my Frankenstein.” All those things have to be in the show. The tradition is to always end up executing Alice somewhere in the show so you’ve got the guillotine song. At that point, you don’t have a lot of room to add new stuff so to me, I have to surgically implant one or two songs from the new album and to make sure that it flows with the rest of the stuff. The hardest thing is going through 27 albums and trying to please everybody. It’s just impossible. As soon as I get a show done, everybody loves it and then I get emails saying, “How come you didn’t play this? How come you didn’t play that?” And it’s a good problem to have except you have to just get to a point and say, “Look.” So what I did on this show is I started rotating songs in. We do this song and this song and then next week we take those two out and put these two in so you are always getting two or three fresh new songs in the show.

Are you ever amazed at what you are able to get away with on stage? You’ve always been the original shock rocker but we live in a day and age now where everybody has to be so politically correct. Everybody is so quick to jump on Twitter and criticize everything!
It’s so funny because I’m not politically correct; I’m politically incoherent. So I could care less. It’s a show and I keep telling them, “Look. It’s a show. It’s fantasy. It has nothing to do with reality.” So, if you see Alice Cooper beating up a doll, it’s a doll; it’s not a person and then when that doll comes to live and does a ballet and then Alice kills the ballerina, well then, the ballerina has every single right to kill Alice back. Most people come to my show understanding that I’m not trying to tell them anything. I’m not trying to be politically correct or incorrect. You’re there to see an Alice Cooper show, you’re there to have fun and I agree with you, I think we are so politically correct now that we are turning into a bunch of robots.

In the early days, there was nothing but complaints because that was back when I was upsetting everybody. I think now people look at what I do and they get the sense of humor behind it. At the same time, there are a lot of things in the show that are very pointed and kind of make a statement and make you go “What? I don’t know if you’re allowed to say that or you’re allowed to do that” and I can say, “Hey Alice is allowed to do anything that he wants to do.”

How important is it for a frontman to entertain a crowd like that? And does it bother you that so many of today’s artists seem to just stand on the stage and act like they are too cool to move around up there?
When I saw Mick Jagger, I understood what it was like to get on stage and strut. You have to have a lot of ego up there to be a rock star, you get up there and strut your stuff and be sexy and be funny and be cool and be rock. You have to be a bit of an outlaw, the whole idea of being a rock star was to be an outlaw. I think this last generation is just so afraid to stand out. Everybody wants to fit in, whereas I never wanted to fit in, I always wanted to be something different. So did Bowie and so did Jagger and Jim Morrison. We didn’t want to be like everybody else; we wanted to create a new character up there. It’s a little worrisome that there are so many teenagers that are afraid to be teenagers.

So what would your advice be to them in terms of how to captivate an audience?
I would say understand the fact that when you are on stage, you are bigger than life. I’m not trying to make everybody into some kind of theatrical character but when you’re on stage, you become something other than yourself. I am totally different than Alice Cooper, I couldn’t be more different than him. When I get on stage, I play this arrogant villain and if I was just up there going, “Hey everybody, Good to see you tonight. Let’s all have fun,” people would look at Alice and go “Oh that’s not cool.” Alice is supposed to be something other than human so I never talk to the audience. I sort of let what happens on stage talk to the audience.

Between your solo material and the Hollywood Vampires, you seem to be touring more than ever these days. What’s your secret to keeping up your energy and having your shows be as good as ever while so many of your colleagues seem to be slowing down?
I honestly think one of the great things is I’m not stressed about anything. Everything is in order in my life -- I’m happily married for 41 years, financially and spiritually in order and I really like what I’m doing. I can’t imagine being in a band where I just stand up there and sing the songs. That would just bore me to death but the fact that I’m doing exactly what I want to do is probably why I’m still doing it. I also never smoked cigarettes and I think not drinking and smoking has a lot to do with your longevity. I probably have the energy of a 30-year old, rather than a 69-year-old, whereas a lot of guys that are my age get done with a show and are exhausted. I actually feel great after a show!

Alice Cooper To Michael Jackson: Fashion At The GRAMMYs: 1980s

UB40 promotional image

UB40

Interview

UB40 Talk Touring, New Album & Paul McCartney

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Frontman Ali Campbell discusses the sparks that have inspired UB40's upcoming studio album
Steve Baltin
Recording Academy
Oct 12, 2017 - 4:28 pm

As has been well documented for hundreds of soap opera-esque TV documentaries, band dynamics can make marriages or families look downright harmonious. Take the case of the now-splintered UB40.

Four-time GRAMMY nominees for Best Reggae Album, the group saw lead singer Ali Campbell leave in 2008 due to business disputes with the band’s management. Campbell embarked on a solo career before reuniting with band members Mickey Virtue and Astro in 2014 for the album Silhouette.

Three years later the trio are touring under the UB40 moniker and have a new album on the way in February of 2018. Campbell spoke with GRAMMY.com about revisiting the classic songs, rediscovering his love for touring and his friendship with Paul McCartney.

How has the tour been going?
We do like little festivals, we’ve got Raging Fyah with us and the original Wailers. We had Billy Ocean with us the last gig, so yeah, we just go around and do this “Grandslam” and it’s been really lovely. The weather has been fantastic, thank god, cause there’s only one thing that can ruin an outdoor show. And in England that’s the weather.

I spoke with Christine McVie recently and she said she was done with music until she realized she missed her musical family. Was it the same for you?
I was tired of touring. I’d been touring since 1980, literally my adult life. And I thought I was sick of touring as well. But then I stopped touring and I realized that’s what I do and it’s just lovely to be back with my muckers on the road, going around all the beautiful places in America. We also finished the “Red, Red Winery” tour of Australia and New Zealand last year and that was just fantastic. We finished that one actually in Hawaii. So we’ve just been spending all our time in these absolutely beautiful locations drinking wine and doing shows. It doesn’t get any better than that really.

Having been away from it and realizing you do miss it do you have a greater appreciation for being on the road now?
Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is I’m touring now with a new band really. Me, Astro and Mickey [Virtue], we always say it’s UB40 featuring Ali, Astro and Mickey, so nobody gets us mixed up with the other lads. And basically we’re having a bit of a renaissance. We’ve been all around in the world and we’ve sort of carried on, carried on. Now we’re also doing a new album for Universal, which will be released February. And that’s gonna be so, wow, the monitor mixes has got me overboard about it. So I’m sure we’ll be touring that one next year as well.

Are there songs you’re surprised the audience has made them favorites?
Definitely songs we’d forgotten about that we sort of dug up. We did a British tour, I think it was the Labour Of Love I and II tour and there were a bunch of songs on there that we’d forgotten about, songs we hadn’t played in decades. And so a couple of those have made their way back into the normal set now because of the reaction they got. We thought, “Bloody hell, forgot about that, let’s put that in the set.” So the set that we’re doing now has been sort of evolving the last three years and it’s the set now that we play everywhere. We don’t change for each country, we just do the same set. And it’s going down really well.

Tell me about the new music. How far along are you on the new album?
They’re all the backing tracks, 16 backing tracks, and it’s the best stuff I’ve done in years and years and years. I feel like it’s the best stuff I’ve done in years. We haven’t finished it yet and I think that’s what’s exciting. Astro’s done his vocals and I’m continuing to do mine over the next couple of weeks before coming back to the States. But we’re not in a rush to mix it because we’ve got until February, that’s when it’s gonna get released, for Valentine’s Day. So Universal have given us plenty of time to get all our ducks in a row before the release. It couldn’t be going better actually. I don’t know how I could make this album fail it’s going so well. It’s like it’s taken on a bit of a life of its own. That’s what happens with good albums. Most people say they can’t wait to get it released. So that’s what we’ll be doing next year, we’ll be touring for that album.

Was there one song early on that shaped the sound of this record?
The last recording we did was just a sort of almost like a joke. We were pushing the Silhouette album in England and we were doing lots of radio sessions where obviously they can’t have the whole band, there are 11 people on stage in UB40, so you can’t bring everybody to a session in a radio station. So we started doing little acoustic sets, acoustic versions of songs, and we did about five of those sessions. Then of course I realized I’ve got an unplugged album here, so it was really strange doing it unplugged because it’s a reggae album that’s got no bass on it, which is unprecedented right there. So it was a strange recording without bass and with the acoustic style. So to get back doing a proper album with electric bass and stuff it’s been really exciting. And it’s reenergized the recording process, it’s almost like going in with fresh ears I think. It’s my thirtieth production of an album, so I should be getting it right by now (laughs).

How crazy is it Paul McCartney called to tell you he liked your solo album?
It’s funny you mention Paul McCartney because I’ve been traveling in the van and I’ve been watching the anthology. It’s eight CDs long and it’s brilliant. It’s an in-depth look at the Beatles story, what happened to them. And it’s very sobering when you see what they went through. And the fact everything they did was for the first time and I’m sure they wouldn’t have stopped after the Candlestick Park concert had they known what to expect, if they’d known what playing to 50,000 people sounded like. So it’s a great thing to watch it. And I watched it just after I watched the Eight Days A Week film, the new one. Like anybody of my age I grew up listening to the Beatles and that was sort of the music that I knew up until I started listening to reggae when I was 10, 11 years old. So I went from the Beatles to the Jackson 5 to reggae.

Ziggy Marley Wins Best Reggae Album For 'Ziggy Marley'

Trisha Yearwood

Trisha Yearwood

Interview

Trisha Yearwood On Touring With Garth Brooks, Voice Health & Christmas

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GRAMMY winner reveals the secret to creating music that resonates with fans and the candy bar her hubby needs in the recording studio
Nicole Pajer
Recording Academy
Oct 12, 2017 - 4:26 pm

Trisha Yearwood got her start opening up for Garth Brooks in the early 90’s. “I learned so much from being on the road with him, it was unreal,” she tells GRAMMY.com Twenty-six years later, the GRAMMY-winning songstress is still looking to the country crooner as her music career muse. The duo, who married in 2005, are constantly collaborating with one another. “We always sing on each other’s records,” Yearwood reveals, adding that her husband is notorious for pushing her out of her vocal comfort zone. Her wailing vocals at the end of Brooks’ rendition of “Shameless,” for instance, occurred when the country star pushed his wife to be more “raw and gritty.” And Brooks often turn to Yearwood for her honest opinions when he’s in the process of crafting new tunes. “It’s great to have somebody to bounce things off of and to be honest with you that you trust to be like ‘Yeah you need to sing that again,’” says Yearwood.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Yearwood at the launch of her William Sonoma food line partnership to discuss how she refuses to record any track that she can’t personally relate to, how setting the vibe in the studio helped her and Brooks to record a Christmas album in the midst of a Southern summer heat wave, and the secret to staying relevant decades after her career launched.

You’ve had a lot of exciting projects coming out lately, including your new food line at William Sonoma. As an entertainer, how important is it for you to eat well?
I struggle with my weight so I’m always trying to find ways to eat healthier and that’s very important for an entertainer. If you take care of your overall body by trying to eat healthy, exercise, and sleep, then your voice stays healthy. I don’t really have time to have a cold every couple of weeks so I really do find if I eat healthy and get my rest, then my voice stays healthy too.

Are there other things that you do to keep your voice in optimal shape?
It’s basically the things your mom told you to do. Get plenty of sleep, drink water, take care of your body. I try to associate what’s happening with what I’m eating and so I try to stay away from dairy before I perform. I notice that if I have cream in my coffee or cheese on something, that I have to clear my throat more. You don’t sing through your nose, you sing through your diaphragm, which is way down there and if you breathe from that space, then what comes out of your mouth should not be taxing on your throat. That’s always one of those things that, thank God, I always did and when I found out about it as an adult, I was like, “Oh cool I always do that.” I never had any – knock on wood – major vocal troubles.

You are currently on the road with Garth. What goes into curating that show?
Garth is not like other boys so there is not a tour like this. We are about to hit our three-year mark of this tour. It always starts with the music. It’s really the Garth Brooks tour with Trisha Yearwood. I come out in the middle and do my set and it’s a much more abbreviated version of an evening with me when I do my own show. So for me, it’s thinking you’re going to be out there, you’re coming out with a big bang, what songs do I have to do? I couldn’t get out of the building without doing “She’s in Love With The Boy” and “How Do I Live” and “XXX’s And OOO’s” and “Walk Away Joe.” So you kind of figure out what the songs are going to be and then you figure out how you make those songs bigger and better. For Garth it’s second nature, He’s always done these big tours and he’s used to a bigger scale. I’m used to theaters, I love theaters where if you say something in the background, I can hear you and we can have a conversation. Stepping into this arena is a lot different for me and it’s a big space. You’re trying to get into the back row but the back row is a lot farther back than it is in a theater. We’ve incorporated a video screen to make it interactive for people at the show. I think that helps create an energy that makes my portion of the show very fun for me.

You actually started out opening for Garth back in the day. What have you learned from him over the years that you’ve taken with you into your career?
The very first tour that I was on in ’91, I was opening for him. I had one song on the radio and he was just entering the Garth Brooks phenomenon phase. He was just starting to explode and it was such a huge time in his career so to be the opening act was a huge opportunity to be in front of those fans. I was lucky because the first artist I toured with was him and he taught me, just by watching him, so many things. The thing that I took away the most was how he treated people. To this day, now knowing him 27 years later, he treats people with respect, no matter if you’re the President of the United States or you’re the guy who is taking out the trash in the building. There is no difference in the way that he treats people. He’d also be right there beside you helping you take out the trash or opening the door for you. He’s always been that guy and that’s who he is. I think I always thought that when people become famous and successful, they don’t do anything for themselves anymore. They have somebody that drives them around, somebody does their grocery shopping, someone does their laundry and I watched the biggest star in country music do all his own stuff. My theory is if you’re a nice person, then success gives you an opportunity to be a nice person on a grander scale. I really don’t think success makes people assholes. I think that’s kind of who you are and then I think success gives you a greater platform to be an asshole.

Are you working on any new material these days?
This leg of the tour will end in December and we’ll figure out what’s next. The intensity of these shows and this tour has been a lot. The only thing I’ve written on the calendar for January is sleep and I have that written on the calendar for every single day but that’s when I want to start a new record. I’m just starting to listen to songs. That’s the one thing, in all of these wonderful things that I do, that I have really missed. It’s kind of been impossible and new music has been on the backburner for a while but it’s time. I am so anxious to get in the studio and make some new music so that will definitely be happening in the first part of the year.

What’s the secret to constantly creating new content that resonates with your fans?
I think it’s very selfish honestly. I think the first person that it has to resonate with is you. As an artist, if you’re making music for any reason other than the fact that it’s a song that moves you first, then your kind of selling out. I’ve always had this theory that if I record a song because somebody tells me that it’s going to be a hit but I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel like me, then you are kind of screwed either way. If it’s a huge hit then you sing a song that you hate every single night and if it’s not a hit, then you basically sold your soul for no reason. It’s really a very personal connection to songs and then you make that record. This is how I do it, without thought of “is this going to get played on the radio?” or “is this going to be a hit?” You basically choose songs that you love and then once that album is done you go “OK now what is the best way to get it out to as many people as we can? What songs seem like they are the ones that more people will resonate with?” And you have to kind of put it out there and take your chance. It’s like if you’re a painter or a sculptor; you have to do what moves you and then you hope it moves other people.

You and Garth did a Christmas album together last year. What’s it like when the two of you are in the studio together?
Well the Christmas album was mostly things that you would know – a combination of things from the past and more recent songs. Garth wrote a few songs himself and then he and I wrote a song together called “What I’m Thankful For” that became a very special piece because James Taylor came and sang on it. The coolest thing about the Christmas album to me was it’s my favorite holiday. Garth and I have always sung on each other’s records even if we haven’t done duets but this was the first chance where we got to sing together all day long. It was a joy. We got to drive to the studio together and drive home together and in between just have fun. The studio, if you do it right, should be a place that really is a sanctuary and a place that you get to really enjoy and be creative. I always look forward to those days because you know you’re going to get to have fun. You don’t know what you’re going to create until you leave that night. You won’t know until you’ve done it so it’s really fun. One of my favorite things in the whole process of the music business is the recording process – just taking a song that you like and then turning it into yours and sometimes those things turn into songs that become iconic songs and you are like “man when we recorded it we just liked it. We had no idea where it was going to go.” That’s a really cool part for me.

Do you and Garth push each other out of your comfort zones in the studio? Who is more notorious for doing that?
I think Garth has always been good at pushing me outside of my comfort zone. I go back to a song called “Shameless” that he recorded that was a Billy Joel song. He wanted this harmony at the end of the song. It’s on the fade when you’re going into the next record on the radio. He wanted me to do this wailing high kind of crazy thing and I’m like, “I’m game.” So I go in and I do what I thought would be great. I thought he would be crying it was so good. I was like, “That is amazing!” and he’s like, “This sounds effortless. I want you to push. I want it to be raw and gritty.” Basically, he pushed and pushed until I got angry with him and we were not a couple at this point. We were just friends and I was pissed. He said, “No. Just one more time.” At that time I was so mad that I said, “Fine here you go” and I just hit this thing and just wailed out of anger and of course that was the one. He’s like, “That’s it! That’s it!” So when I hear “Shameless” and I hear that wailing thing on the end, people are like, “Oh man I didn’t know that was you. It just sounds so different” and I’m like, “I was really mad.” But I love it. I think he was right. I would not have gotten to that level had I not been pushed.

I don’t think I do that with him because he already pushes himself so hard that he’s already got that part down. In the studio, I’m the friend that will say, “I think you want to listen to that one line. It’s not quite there on pitch.” You need someone to go “Can you listen to this and tell me that it’s OK?” It’s great to have somebody to bounce things off and to be honest with you that you trust to be like “Yeah you need to sing that again.”

When you write new material, what is that environment like for you?
It happens in different ways. I am not the writer that Gath is. I think he is probably always writing. For me, because my biggest musical influences were people like Linda Ronstadt and Patsy Cline who really didn’t write very much, I’ve not written as much as Garth but he helps me. Like the Thanksgiving song on the Christmas album, that came about because I needed a song for the Thanksgiving episode of my cooking show. If you look up Thanksgiving songs on the Internet, there just really aren’t any. He was the one that said, “Let’s write it” and I said, “I’m good at telling a story but I’m not good at writing.” And he’s like, “Well tell me a story. Tell me what’s important in your life.” He takes my words and he makes them beautiful. I love writing with him because he just gets that. With other people, I have a book of titles and thoughts – a line here and a line there. You go in and write with somebody and they might go “Oh I like that one. Let’s write that.” And that’s how it starts and you work all day on something and sometimes it turns into something, sometimes not.

The one thing that I will say as an artist who listens to a lot of songs is I think that back in the day, maybe 20 years ago, writers had publishers who really pushed them to not settle for the first thing they wrote and really rework and rework to get those lines perfect. I’ll hear songs today and say, “They’re good songs but they are not finished.” It’s like somebody wrote down the first thing that came into their head and it’s good but it needs to be continued to be worked on. As an artist listening to songs, I wish publishers would push writers to rewrite and to keep working and to just hone it and get it perfect.

What are your studio must-haves that help create the perfect zone for writing and recording?
Garth calls them his vitamins and power drink and that’s M&Ms and Dr. Pepper. If you walk in the studio right now and he’s recording, there will be M&Ms and Dr Pepper in there because that’s his thing when he’s working. He has a sweet tooth. I don’t eat a ton when I’m recording because if you are super full, then you can’t really sing. On studio days I’ll eat light. I’ll eat a salad or something that keeps me going but is not heavy. But two things that I don’t live without in the studio are coffee and water. I’ll drink coffee all day if I’m not careful. I have a deal with myself that for each cup of coffee; I have to drink a cup of water. Those are the things I can’t imagine being in the studio without. 

Trisha Yearwood Wins Best Female Country Vocal Performance