Lady A Knew Changing Their Name Would 'Alienate A Lot Of Fans'

Country music trio, Lady A, formerly known as Lady Antebellum, are speaking out about their decision to change their name.

The Grammy-winning group, comprised of Hilary Scott, Charles Kelley, and Dave Haywood, recently appeared on The Tamron Hall Show where they shared their reasoning behind their controversial decision amid the Black Lives Matter movement.

"The heart of our decision still rings true today as much as it did back in June when we made this announcement," Scott told Hall. "We want our music, and our live shows and anything that we're a part of, for everyone to feel welcome and invited. And we realized over the summer not touring and watching just this movement happen that is so needed in this country and around the world, we started to see what our part was, what part of our first steps in making a difference could be."

"Our name changing was the first step," she added. "You never know how things are going to happen and we never saw that coming."

The country trio first announced their name change on June 11. "After much personal reflection, band discussion, prayer and many honest conversations with some of our closest Black friends and colleagues, we have decided to drop the word 'antebellum' from our name and move forward as Lady A, the nickname our fans gave us almost from the start.⁣⁣," the trio wrote in a statement on social media at the time.

In the interview with Hall, Haywood further explained how the decision came about after having "so many conversations" with Black friends.

"Our goal was to find out the heart behind what 'Antebellum' could bring up for some, and unanimously, it brought up hardship," he said. "So this decision was simple for us, we've been going by 'Lady A' since 2006. And I was just going through my journal the other day and, man, the common denominator with all of my conversations with my friends of color was, 'Let's please keep having this conversation y'all. Let's keep talking about this. Let's make some long term commitments to this,' which we decided to do with our organization, Lady Aid, to support some HBCUs and underprivileged communities. So it was not the end, it was the beginning for us."

Kelley continued on to explain how he felt "guilty" for not thinking about the impact the term could have earlier on, describing it as a "blind-spot."

"And I think I am so guilty of...I didn't think about it," he said. "You know, we came up with the name thinking about the Antebellum home…I don’t know it’s so naive now looking back, but I think, as we've grown up, we all have kids now. I mean why now? Well, we're a lot older, we look at the world a lot different. "We're trying to leave the world a little bit better too for our kids and the next generation. We want to be a part of change. We knew this was going to be difficult. We knew we were going to alienate a lot of fans."

"We didn't see some of these other things coming, but it hasn't changed how we’ve tried," he continued, referring to the controversy the trio faced after a blues singer by the name of Lady A sued the group. "We're trying to resolve this issue with Anita and we're really trying to be a light out there for everybody. And we know it's going to be tough, it's a very divisive issue, but it shouldn't be a divisive issue; it's just about love."

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