In Case You Missed It: #103 - Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum on how 'Need You Now' was almost never recorded, How Music came easy to him, His dad wanted him to be a Dentist,

Dave Haywood is the brains behind Lady Antebellum. He tells us about his childhood and how music just came easily to him. He also explains the story of how Lady A formed and what caused them to take a break from music and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what up? It is Mike d producer of The
Bobby Cast, and I wanted to share an episode with
you that you may have missed with Dave Haywood, because
the really awesome one. And the reason we're bringing it
up is because we recently had Josh Kre on the show,
who wrote Need You Now with Lady Annabellum. Now, this
song almost never happened, which is crazy. It came out

(00:20):
ten years ago and actually almost to the day is
when it started. It's five week run at number one
on the country tract, which is pretty unheard of now
with them just the way music is, so it's pretty
crazy to hear the story of how this song almost
never happened. It was literally just a voice memo in
their phone, wasn't even gonna be on the album. Dave

(00:40):
Haywood talks about that story and also just about how
he grew up super smart guy. His dad's a dentist,
so really there's a lot of ways his life could
have gone outside of being in Lady Otta Bellum. So
here we go episode one or three of The Bobby
Cast in case you missed it with Dave Heywood. Welcome
to the episode with Dave Haywood from Lady and You're

(01:01):
like the unicorn man, like the magical Unicorn. I've never
had a one on one interaction with You're the only
one of the three of you guys. Are you nervous?
Well a bit. I was a little anxious before you
came over because I was talking to Mike. He said, Hey, Mike,
who produces this? He said, Hey, you wanna get lady A.

(01:22):
I said, I want to get Dave. Look at that. Man.
I appreciate that because I've a small but mighty fan
club of us out there. I don't know if I'm
in it yet. That's what I've worked with Charles, but
all we did some of his the shot together that
that golf show. I mean obviously I know you guys
from the superficial. Hey, come in, give you a half

(01:42):
a hug and talk about whatever project. You know that
that whole part of it. I know Hillary when she
was doing her solo stuff, and um, we did some stuff.
I never of you, and I just been The conversation
you and I just had was the only one on
one conversation we've read. It's again, You're the Unicorn. This
is my first podcast ever? Oh is it? Oh, you'll
enjoy it because you get to stretch out a bit. Yeah,

(02:03):
I know, I like it. I was telling my wife,
I was like, it's gonna be nice to just kind
of chat and not. No, you only have two minutes,
you know, and you've got a role. Even for me
doing the radio thing, it's and I get it, talk
longer than most shows have a little room because my audience, uh,
they know what to expect. But even then, it's seven minutes.
Point out, make a funny joke, get in, Let Charles

(02:25):
say something. I'm noxious, all right, Hilary's something sweet. Then
David says something really smart, and you know, did you
just move on because you don't really know what he
just said because it's too musical. So I'm glad you
came in. Thank you for having me. Uh So I
went to the dinnist today, okay, and I bring this
up to you because your dad basically been a teeth
whitening essentially. Okay, I went to the dnnist today, and

(02:47):
so when I started to be somewhat successful, I got
new teeth because I never had braces and I couldn't
afford braces as a kid, and so I got these
four and five on the bottom really crooked. I went today,
right and I broke one of them. Oh, and they
replaced it was the wrong color. They gave me the
wrong color tooth weight, like the wrong shade of white. Yeah,

(03:09):
it was like gray, and so I went in. They
took the temporary off, put the new one on didn't match,
took it back off, put the temper back and sent
me home. What. Yeah, an hour and a half and
there's a little pain. And nothing happened today except they
said we put the wrong color. What do you think
about that? I don't they did. They did when it
was in my mouth, but they called the lab to

(03:31):
try to get fixed the same day, and that didn't
let you. Did you get to approve it or not?
Normally they show you the color, Yeah, make sure that
you can see it until I approve it. The hygena said,
you're not gonna like this. She said, they sent the
wrong color. Oh no, wow, So your thoughts as an
expert tooth person. I don't know if I'm an expert
tooth person. My dad wanted me to be a dentist
growing up. Was that the thing? But I don't, you know,

(03:54):
it's funny. I just didn't like hands in mouth and
it's just kind of a gross area to me. But um,
how have you liked it? How's it worked out for you?
Which part of its excellent? Yeah? Yeah, I've had a
lot of oral issues because I'd never I never went
to the dentist in my twenties period. So I loved
them and I went to do you know Caroline cut Berth. Yeah, yeah,

(04:18):
her dad is in Waco, Texas and his oh my
dad knows her dad, so yes, So I went to
him because I trusted him. I'm so scared of the mouth,
and so I love them actually, and they look great. Thanks,
I'm really proudly And you don't have to whiten him.
My dad did the teeth whitening, so that was his
kind of thing, so he helped. So he helped write
the first article on teeth whitening in the early eighties. Um,

(04:40):
he was doing a research grant at u n C,
North Carolina and Chapel Hill where we used to live. Um,
which I always leave out the story because I was
mostly in Augusta, Georgia for most of my life. But
and you and see, my dad was doing a research
grant and researching teeth whitening, and wrote the first article
in the world about this is just nerd talk, but um,
the podcasts for by the way, all right, good. So

(05:03):
my dad wrote the first article in the world on
using carbon my peroxide which you put in the tray
and you sleep in at night, um, to try to
whiten your teeth. So he wrote the first article on
that in the world in the early eighties, and so
people kind of coined him like the grandfather of teeth whitening. Uh.
And so he speaks on it all around the world. Um,
A lot of the rest of the world is a
lot farther behind and dental work than America is. So

(05:24):
he speaks a lot. A majority of his time is
around the world, all over the place, I mean, through
Russia and Australia and Japan. Yeah, I mean he's he
like travels more than we do in the band. Your
dad teaches school. So he teaches. Yeah, he teaches, uh,
like sophomores and juniors because he loves teaching. And in

(05:45):
college yeah, um, in the dental program in dental school,
so after college for their masters in dentistry and stuff.
So he teaches and then he does research on teeth
whitening and speaks, and then he also sees some general patients.
Would he have liked you to be an he wanted
me to be. He wanted me to be. I mean
he you know, he would bring home little exercises that

(06:05):
his students would do when I was young, where you
have to work with chalk and work with your hands
and like form things. And I tried it a few times.
I just wasn't any good at it. But it's just
kind of gross to me. But my dad, I will
say so to give that a credit. The reason he
loves dentistry is because this sounds cheesy, but he does
love to make people happy and make people smile. So
at the core of it, he does it because he

(06:27):
loves making other people happy. And when you know, when
you go in you get everything done, then you like
look in the mirror for the first time, you feel
great about yourself. So yeah, it's my confidence level. Yeah
is two points hired because I my teeth are better, right,
And that's what he believes in. I mean he really
is like as gross says, being in the dental chair

(06:47):
is and always you know somebody's over you trying to
talk and all that stuff. He loves it because he
when people walk out, they smile and they're happy, and
they their confidence level goes through the roof. So so
he's academic. Yeah, do you think of genetically that's why
you are your academic musically? I think so. Yeah. You
see that same trait where he associates himself with that

(07:09):
that you're doing music. Yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah.
Has anyone ever made that point? Yes, we have a breakthrough.
Had I had a well coming over here. I was like,
is this gonna be? Like my counseling sessions were like,
you know, people have cried in that chair really and
then didn't think they were going to you know with
you know Robert Eaton of course. Yeah. Yeah, he's a

(07:31):
heartfelt guy. Hen You know, again, it's a great point.
It's a good point point, Bobby. I mean people that
really come from that place of like I want to
do something that matters. And even though you wouldn't think
like it's just dynistry, it's just teeth. To my dad,
it matters because it does give people confidence. And I
know Robert Share is so much of that. He's really passionate,
you know, like he's always moving and shaking for the

(07:52):
TV shows and the YOURD shows and the festivals that
he's doing. But man, at the core of it, he
is just I mean that Carry Underwood moment that that
you know happen at the CM as all these things
were just I mean, that's what he lives for, is
to make people feel great in that. So when were
you starting to go, I think I'm pretty good at
music then, I mean growing up, I mean probably aged

(08:13):
ten twelve. Quickly, I mean, the guitar came really easy.
And again my dad always explained to me, He's like,
you know what a talent is, right, I was like no,
He's like, when it actually comes to you really easily.
And I was like, but it doesn't feel like a
talent because it's easy. And he's like, well, that means
you're talented at And I was like, oh, I guess
I'm talented at guitar. It just came naturally and easy,

(08:34):
UM and coming up with chord progressions and coming up
with UM. I would just use some basic recording software,
which was a cassette tape that had multi tracks on it,
and I would record like four track instrumental little jams
and I just play him in the kitchen for my
mom all the time. With drums. I had a drum
machine and bass and guitars and mandolin, and I just

(08:55):
kind of make these little instrumental things. And that was
one and that was easy, and I felt like I
came alive in that process. So I love. That's when
I got really into recording playing guitar. I mean it
was probably twelve thirteen years old. Who put all that
in front of you? Because someone had to say, here's
a guitar, here's how to run a four track. Yeah,
my dad gave me the first guitar, and he plays
banjo and guitar. My mom plays piano, and I really

(09:18):
learned it was a lot from them. We had a
music room just like a room, you know, kind of
like this, but all instruments lining the walls, and once
it was in front of me, I just I love
learning instruments, and again it just came naturally and it
was fun to figure out. When I figured out the mandolin,
you know, and and figured out the bass and all
these things. My dad taught me the core of guitar,

(09:38):
and my mom taught me the core of piano. But
kind of it's branched off into a lot of different
instruments and then recording. I just fell in love with
the cassette tape recording, adding something on top, adding something else.
I mean, nowadays the software is insane, you can do
that a million times, but back then you really had
to work hard to kind of navigate recording multiple tracks.
So did you want to be on a stage or

(10:01):
did you want to create from behind? I didn't want
to be on a stage, honestly, I would say when
I when I set out, it was the love of
creating music the studio and song or I would say
I hang my hat on songwriting and producing or being
creative in the studio. Did you find the formula songwriting
would come to you pretty easy to Yeah, I mean

(10:24):
it just made sense in like a way that's it's
hard to describe. I mean, it's hard to describe what
I hear when I have an idea. I guess, you know,
like if somebody were to say we need a song
for I mean, when we wrote love Don't Live Here,
actually nobody probably ever knows this, which we can get deep.
I guess when we wrote Love Don't Live Here, we

(10:44):
had heard that Um Harley Davidson was looking for a
theme song, and so uh, Josh Kelly, Charles's brother, told
us he's like, dude, Harley Davidson looking for a riff
for their theme song. And I was like, oh, I know,
I got some great ideas. I bet I can come
up with a riff for something. And we went through
a bunch of riffs and then the riff that we

(11:05):
settled on ended up being something we kept for ourselves,
which was Love Don't Live Here, the very opening guitar
riff of Love Don't Live Here, which is the first
song we ever put out as Lady in a Bellum.
But I don't know, I don't know. When I hear
songwriting to me, I feel like, if you give me
an idea or say, man, we need a let's let's
write about this, Let's write about this mood, let's write
about this spine. That's very first song, ute and kept

(11:37):
for yourself. That's right. But yeah, that guitar riff done
and done? No, no, no, no, you know coming up
with that, I mean, just that and that brings back
good memories. That's the old Paul Paul Worly days. Man,
he's such a cat in studio I haven't heard that
in a while. Do you think of guys whenever you
were coming up and think of them in the studio?
Are you talking about Paul Warley? How much of him

(11:59):
do you watch and study? Because that's what you were
really into. Yeah, so that was what I was really into.
So Dan Huff, Paul Worley, we had Dan on one
of these mind blown the whole thing. I was just
staring at him. It's so you should if you ever
go back and listen to podcast, listen to the Dan
Huff one will all it is me fan growing for
our Here's here's me every question. You did that too,

(12:22):
He's got a resume. But that production I mean Mark
Bright so Mark Bright, I mean the first Carry record
was sick. But Dan Huff, Mark Bright, Um, Paul Whorley,
and even Ed Cash. I don't know if you know
Ed Cash. He produced Dave Barnes a lot of his records.
But so, yeah, those guys are kind of to me
my unsung heroes. And I would read all the liner notes.

(12:45):
I would do everything you could to understand what in
the world is Paul Worley doing on that Dixie Chicks record? Like,
how does he get that like, who came up with that?
Who came up with the fiddle on Cowboy Take Me Away?
Who came up with that? You know? That was what
blew my mind, was the production, the musicians, and of
course the songwriting. So I mean to go back to
your original question. Did I moved to Nashville to be

(13:08):
under the bright lights and be in the middle of
the stage. It's a great, amazing perk of what we
get to do. But I would say what I cut
my teeth on in my core and my love, absolutely love.
I can stay up all night long sitting in the
studio working on stuff. The dynamic of the group works
because of that. Charles is big and loud, of course,

(13:30):
and he is a made frontman. Yeah, Hillary, not as
being alloud, but see great singer heart, Yes, passionate, passionate.
They would have made it themselves equally if they If
you guys never formed another front, mail wouldn't have worked.
I hope that's fair to say, No fair to say
for sure, what I would I've come to find out

(13:51):
over the years. Um, I've recently been diving into the
angiogram and podcasts. If you've heard of that personality test.
But there's a beautiful a way that our personalities mix
and match. I mean it's really beautiful. I mean there's
no other way you could have orchestrated it. I mean,
you know the way me and Charles started, the way
we met her, and we are three completely different personalities,

(14:12):
but it just works to be fair. I would say,
you are the frontman in the studio, I'd say, it's
a different it's like a triangle. Well, we each have
our roles. Kind of the way we say it a
lot is we each have our roles, I think. And
Charles is so great live, I mean so great live.
I mean when we were in middle school, he'd we'd
be sitting. I mean, I play guitar in a band,

(14:33):
and so Charles would like come up on stage like
he does now, you know when he's always like, dude,
let me come up on stage and sing. So he'd
come up on stage in middle school and do the
same thing, and we played Mustang Sally or play a
James Brown song and he would just light the room up.
And he's eleven years old, Like how do you do that?
You know, because I'd be back there playing all the
parts and doing stuff. And he's amazing live. And I
think Hillary, like you said, it is such an amazing, passionate,

(14:56):
heartfelt person and where's her heart on her sleeve? And
people connect with it and they connect with her so much.
And then what I lose my what I will take
to my grave is I just am obsessed with songwriting
and production and so it's just this beautiful kind of
triangle of the way things that are married in our groups.
Of the group, I mean, I would say they look

(15:18):
to me for like, hey, what do you think we
should do? Um? I mean where there's always a producer
there too, But what I really I know us and
I know what we'll do. Really. The producer is helpful
to kind of push us. But I think at the
end of the day, I'm like, man, we you know,
we really we should add strings to this. I really
don't think we should. That guitar risk just too cheesy

(15:40):
for us. We wouldn't do that. Let me try coming
up with something myself. I think they look to me
musically for where we go and dynamically, and I just
know what I can hear that we're talking about. You know,
a lot of times you kind of have banter of like, man,
it just doesn't feel right. Just doesn't feel right, Dave,
What are we trying to articulate here? It's like, dynamically,
this isn't happening. How do we make this happen in

(16:02):
the studio? Is that getting really deep into nerdy? No?
I think it's actually not nerdy enough. So I remember
the first time I heard I heard of you guys.
I was doing pop radio and yeah, you guys had
come through Austin and you just when did you guys

(16:23):
sign a deal? You're just two seven? We signed with Capital.
So I was I was building. I was syndicating A Paul.
That was what I was doing at the time. I
started to build this syndication company and I remember you
guys coming through, and I remember the name Lady Annabellum,
which was a weird name the first time you're here,
and I thought a lady must be a bunch of girls.
So what was the process in naming the band? Because
it's a very feminine name, and was Hillary thought of

(16:47):
since it's Lady Annabellum, that people are gonna assume that
she's Annabellum? Was that a thing where everyone kept to
this day, we will walk in the venue, I mean
literally to this day. I mean, we were just on
an arena tour. Right backstage at Bridge Stone, I heard
a security guard say, well, what time does the lady
get here? And I was like, wow, you know, it's
just it really it's it's it's great humble pie. But um,

(17:10):
but yeah, I mean the process of us coming up
with it, it was just it was so small and
it didn't feel like it would be anything that stuck
because we were just trying to come up with something
weird enough to get people's attention. Because that was back
in the MySpace days and you know, people are probably
tuning out what is my space? But you know, we
had all of our music up on my Space and

(17:31):
we were trying to just come up with kind of
a wacky name, like his clickbait, you know, like where
somebody's that come there? Like what in the world is
that lady in the mountain. So that was kind of
the goal, was to come up with something so weird
people click on it. And um, I mean we came
up with it taking pictures in front of some old
homes in Franklin. We drove out a little bit past
Cool Springs where we were and and took some photos
in front of these old kind of mansions and stuff

(17:53):
out there, beautiful Antebellum homes. Um, but yeah, beautiful Annabellum homes.
We were talking about how man, these homes are really
neat and there's such cool Annabellum homes and we're like, well,
that could be a band named Annabellum. And then Charles
was like, what about the ghost of the Lady Annabellum,

(18:14):
Like there's a lady that lives in the house, in
the Antebellum home, the Lady of Antebellum. And we were like, man,
that's so what was the band we reference like Saving Jane,
you know, like kind of a feminine leaning name, but
with like two bearded Harry guys, you know, and you know,
dueling lead vocals and different styles musically. It just was
all I don't know what happened really organically. Was it

(18:34):
always thought of as dueling lead vocals with us from
the from the very beginning. So the first song we
wrote ever was a song called All We'd Ever Need, um,
which was not a single, but I remember we wrote
it um. We were trying to get on Hillary's bandwagon.
So speaking of Hillary being able to make it on
her own, Charles and I were like, you know what,
we're riding her coat tails all the way to the

(18:55):
bank and to the We were like, she's gonna make it, man,
She's huge. Her voice was insane, and so we were
trying to write songs for her. And the first song
we wrote was called All We'd Ever Need, and it
was off Hillary singing the lead vocal and we were
writing it and she was like, God, I just think, Charles,
you should sing. You've got a great voice. I think
you should sing lead on the second verse and kind

(19:17):
of enter is like the second you know, the male partner, uh,
from a story writing perspective, and so once we had
the both vocals in there, it was like, well, this
feels really cool and different. Um. But we're like we
you can't have two vocalists. You can't have to vocalists
in the band, so it's not gonna work. But this

(19:37):
is really interesting. Maybe we'll pitch it to Garth and
Tricia or Him and Faith or somebody doing a duets record. Um.
But sure enough we started writing more duets and then
more kind of Hillary leads, Charles lead, and of course
a lot of three part harmony all over the place.
So it was very again organic and the way it
all evolved and happened naturally. I mean early on radio.

(19:58):
I mean they told us to our face, They're like,
you know, we like you guys, but it's not gonna work.
You can't have two singers. You can't have two lead singers. Nobody.
Everyone's gonna get confused. And we would reference you know,
Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. I mean all these bands
that had multiple people singing leading, had many leads, all
of them. Yeah, I mean Timothy B. Schmidt is my

(20:19):
favorite Eagles member. Uh just with his voice, you know,
but uh yeah, I mean it's you know, people said like, man,
I don't think it's gonna work, and you know, we
were like we we stuck to our guns. It felt
organic and it felt that's who we were. It's crazy
to the organic nous of just you and Charles actually
knowing each other for that long, much less having working

(20:41):
relationship with friendship because you brought up the fact that,
you know, in the middle school, to have two people
that are that talented though even in a small town, yeah,
just as weird. It's almost the outlier effect. You had
two people that love the same thing, whose personalities happened
to work compatible, incompatible. What then you came to that

(21:02):
is the odds of that happening are crazy, it is,
I mean, and and Charles was like, the only person
that's funny. You bring that up, you bring up good points.
I mean, I just remember being in Augusta thinking I
hear music so different. I just when I hear the
radio and I hear songs, I hear production. I can't
even articulate what goes on in my head. There's a
bazillion things for every track I hear. And I was like,

(21:24):
I just don't No one else understands that. But then
when I met Charles and we started to kind of
do some writing and played in bands and did I
was like, he gets it, man, Like I think he
here and we when when we started writing together in
college at the University of Georgia, I was like, Okay,
we're on the same wavelength. And and it is rare.
I mean, to both come out of the same town. Um,

(21:46):
it's a weird. The creative brain is just a it's
a weird thing to explain, you know. I know people
are always like, how do you write songs? How do
you come up with ideas how do you do stuff?
And it's it's hard thinking, like asking how do you
run fast? I mean, which I can't do right well,
I don't know if I actually run, but it's for me,
you know, how do you think quick? Yeah? Like I've

(22:09):
got his gifted me with a talent, and I've learned
how to take this talent and put it into the
tunnel and drill it down. But I think we all
have something that we're right naturally good at. Yeah, and
then that's the beauty of a talent. Again, like my
dad told me, I didn't get what a talent was.
I didn't see it because it came easy to me.
I I figured a talent was like something you really

(22:31):
had to like. I hope this doesn't sound backwards, but
you know, like something you had to work really hard.
Like I wanted to play sports. I just was not
good at sports, any of them really, uh, And I
wanted so bad to be talented at sports, but I
just wasn't. But music was just easy. I was like, well,
that's easy. I know exactly what a song. Come on
the radio. I can mostly tell you what key gets

(22:52):
in you can you can hear the key? Yeah, pretty
much that came off more that sounded really pretentious as
I said it, But knowing guitar so well, I just
know what chords are playing. The thing about podcast, most
listeners are potentious, So we're all good. We're all the
same potentious. Anyone's listening to this is elite. If they
made it the thirty minutes in already, then this is

(23:13):
the They're even more elite. So you say you and
jokingly said that you and Charles we're gonna write Hillary's coattails.
And I don't use the same term. But when you
and Charles came to town, did you just want to
write for Charles and play for Charles? I did so.
When we got to town, we were doing pop music. Um,
he moved to Nashville to do pop music. I moved
to Nashville to write music. This is I love it

(23:36):
going back. Man. We moved to Nashville because of Josh Kelly.
So Charles has Charles has an older brother, Josh Kelly,
who had a big pop song called Amazing Um, which
was huge in two thousand three, I think. And so
he bought a house in Cool Springs and said, dude,
you guys, man, he's so nice he's so kind. He said,
y'all kind of Nashville man, you guys have the talent,
like come and just try to write music. So me

(23:56):
and Charles moved into his house and Cool Springs together
under the goal of just writing songs. We wanted to
be songwriters. Once we got there, Charles and I started
to write songs together a lot and made a CD
under his name, to CDs under his name at UM
at the home studio there, and so yeah, I mean,

(24:17):
we were doing pop stuff under Charles's name, and we
travel all around and play coffee shops and really small,
really small places. We live in your class of moving
to Nashville, because seems everybody has a class. They all
moved at the same time and they were my ours
was around Luke Um, I remember because we were from Georgia.
So I remember a bunch of my friends from Georgia,
southern you know, we were going to move to Nashville,

(24:37):
and they're like, dude, there's this country guy, you know,
Luke Bran. Keep an eye out for him. He got
a record deal about a year before Um we did,
I believe, And I just remember he was in that
development deal and record deal around the same time, so
kind of the Luke Brian era a couple of those people.
I mean Miranda was before us, um, but yeah, I

(24:58):
mean Luke was would be probably our It was just
like both at the same record label, both from Georgia,
New mutual friends and stuff, moved to Nashville. You and
Charles and one and I get to this in a minute,
and you talk about my Space and how it was
such a big part, but you don't even have a
Twitter page, Like social media was such a big part
of you guys a story, yet you don't have a

(25:19):
Twitter page and just got on Instagram personally, Yes, Dave
Haywood personally, I know you didn't. But again, there's a
little bit of beauty to the irony of social media
being it's such a big part of the story of
your life and career and now you just aren't not
on it. Yeah. I can talk about this for hours.
You could do a whole another podcast on social media
for me, I know, computer programming all up really well,

(25:43):
that was my major in college was um Information Systems Technology.
That sounds really nerdy for all the listeners out there,
but I was an m I S. TE major at
U g A and so study computer programming, so I
know backwards and forwards Facebook when it came out, and
social media and what it does and how it operates,
and I love For a time, I loved being on it,

(26:04):
and our band started doing so much on my Space
and we did these webisodes once a week. UM. I
feel like we were on the first people to really
have a camera out a lot and capture a lot
of webisodes early on in country music. UM. And so
that was our main thing. But for me now I
just kind of kind of pulled back. I mean, just
there's kind of this thing that happens with me where

(26:26):
my personality type um anagram nine. For all the Instagram
listeners out there, my personality type just doesn't do well
with tons and tons of exposure and critique with my
personal stuff, you know. So for me, UM, just to
be completely honest with you, there's just boundaries I have. UM.
They're healthy boundaries that I've worked through that are best

(26:48):
for me. UM. I'll share once every few weeks what
I'm kind of doing with my family. But for me,
I have to kind of pull back and I have
to have those boundaries about things that are private but
between you know, stuff with our kids and stuff with
my wife. I don't know. I there's a beauty and
and letting people walk through a journey with you. I
really think there's a beauty in that. Um. But for me,

(27:11):
there's parts of personal life that I just have some
boundaries with. Personally, I don't document every day what I do. UM.
I just kind of enjoy. I feel pressure. My personality
type feels the pressure to perform um if I have
to know that every single day I've got an instant
story Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and know what I'm doing is

(27:34):
really really awesome every day. My personality type doesn't do
well with that kind of performance and pressure on a
day to day basis. So for me, I do better
kind of pulling back and then popping in with like
hey check this out. We had a baby or you know,
hey we're doing this in the studio. But for me,
I just kind of enjoy um. I enjoy that boundary.

(27:56):
Is that okay to say? I think any boundary that
you set up for a fair boundary. I think where
people get in trouble is if they're posting lots of things,
and we'll talk about social media specifically, they post and
they put and then all of a sudden, they demand no,
this is my personal life. It's you have to condition
people to be conditioned, and so if you're set in

(28:18):
the boundary, you can live within it. It's what we're
talking about, and we won't say who. We're talking about.
Somebody in the media earlier and we My point about
them was they're always consistent. I enjoy that, regardless if
I agree with them or not. I just enjoy consistency
in humans in media. I try to give it. Sometimes
I'm consistently inconsistent, and that's even a sort of consistency

(28:40):
right right right where. That took me a second. So
with social media, that the answer for me is, if
that's your rule, don't we all play by it. Now.
If it's your rule, but you change it up and
then you demand other people follow your then it gets
a little squishy. I think that's completely fair. I just
saw the irony in my space was a big part

(29:00):
of Lady and a Bellum. I can't find you on Twitter.
I can't go at Dave Heywood. Have you hashtag Dave
Heywood just a It's like at Charles Kelly l A
and then hashtag Dave Heywood because he doesn't exist. I'm
in the minority here. I understand that me uh me
not being on on all social media. I'm in the minority.
I get that. And I know I probably sound really

(29:21):
old school and people are going to roll their eyes
at it. But for me, again, my personality type just
has to have time for me to retreat, for me
to process things and to live my best life. I
have to pull back and when I go home, I
have to not share it that. Um. And I'll give
you just a completely candid, completely candid and personal experience

(29:43):
and story about that end of last year. I had
a little season of anxiety in my life. Uh, some
panic attacks. Everything kind of came crashing down for a
little bit. And I said a million times for myself,
if I had the pressure every day that I would
have had to post on social media during that time
would have broken me down even more. Um. It was
just a season of a lot of things. And again

(30:04):
I have boundaries with what I even share, but I
want people to know that it's okay to go through
those things. For me, I just I didn't have I
would have been so wrecked if I was going through
all this stuff personally and I had to post today
it was awesome. Today was sick. You know, I just
had the best lit breakfast with my bros. Like I mean,

(30:24):
I just I wasn't. I had a little rough patch
of some personal things. So I don't know. It's for
me again, it's my it's my um personality type that
does the best when I can have moments to retreat, process,
pull back and have time for me. I just have
to have carve out time for me that's not shared,
if that's okay. That anxiety. I was on some crazy

(30:45):
anxiety medicine for a long time. I've never and I
never thought it was until I actually went through it.
It would almost it felt like egg coming over me
that I couldn't get out of, or like what you
know in the mind does the hands. Yeah, yeah, it
felt like that was around me and I couldn't control it.
And then I got onto medicine. I couldn't get off

(31:06):
the whole thing. Yeah, absolutely, And it's you know, I never,
I never fully understood mental health. And I'll be completely honest,
and I actually I feel like I can empathize now
because I was trapped in in some deep anxiety and
panic attacks for about three months and man, it sucks.
It completely sucks. You feel alone, you feel fear can understand,

(31:27):
you feel like nobody understands. That's how I felt. Yeah,
people get butterflies and I get better. But again, it's
if you take a flamethrower of butterflies and shoot them,
ripe your butt hole that into your body. That's really
what it feels like. And you Yeah, and I still
have anxiety. I go to therapist all the time. I'm
still way too much money there. You should, man, counseling

(31:49):
is so his life changing. It's completely life changing for me.
It lets me look at me. Yeah, that's the whole
I've ever had. It's like somebody gives you. They hold
a mirror and say, well, here's here's what you're saying.
Here's where awareness is. Self awareness it is. And that's
my struggle is looking at myself in a natural way.

(32:10):
And it's it's hard, and you don't want to do
it sometimes. Yeah, it's I'm telling you, it's it's so
worth it. It's been a life changer for me. I mean,
I even spent some time at this place called on Site,
which is a spiritual girl's place. But you brought that up. Listen,
you went, okay, let me tell you what happened. Because
she's not gonnare I mentioned this, so she just went
she said two different people. Yeah, before and after, and

(32:33):
I know Miles the CEO. So I did. I did Ted.
Oh now we're going now? So because I got so
many questions and uh, so I did a Ted talk,
and I did a Ted talk on successful people and
how losing and failure is pivotal and success and we

(32:53):
and that's counterintuitive to what we see that we think
somebody just goes, hey, I'm good at something, that they
just win life, and that's really not what happens. Even
the best people struggle, and the struggles what makes them
and separates them from the good. So I do this
Ted talk and Miles, who runs on site, I meet
him for the first time. He does it right right

(33:13):
before me or after me. And I say, because I'm
big into therapy, I make jokes, but I'm big into it.
It's changed my life. So I say, you know, I
have this house and it's all right outside of Nashville.
You come check it out. I don't really think anything
about it. I'm in a charity event with my co
host Amy. I see him again. And I bring it
up to him and say, may I want to come
out there? I just need to get away. Did you

(33:35):
check your phone? Yeah, I couldn't use it. That's crazy
to me, but which was fine because I don't have
social media. There's nothing for me to do. I guess
for me, it's just what if something happens to my dog? Yea,
what if something and I don't have kids or a wife.
There's emergency protocol, they'll they'll there is. Yeah. Yeah. Part
of it scares me so much. Do anyone to ask.
You could go to a specific place and say like, hey,

(33:56):
I've got to check on and they'll be like, okay,
so fine. They just don't want you to be what
we all do. You walk right out of counseling, you
hot back on your email and your text and everything.
That's what I would do. I would live. They have TV's,
um they don't. I don't know if I can. I
sleep with a TV on it. I sleep with the
TV on at night. I grew up. I never had
a bedroom, so I slep on the couch in the
living room. The TV stayed on because I lived in

(34:17):
the living room. I sleep with the TV on or
I get so anxious because since nine the TV has
been on when I sleep. I can't go somewhere to
sleep without a TV. Well, maybe you could do like
a white noise mission. I did. Stuff doesn't work. I
need to have King of Queens with the Honeymooners. Yeah,
it's got to be on in the background. I had

(34:38):
just need like the noise of like Seinfeld happening whatever
it is. This is how messed up out in my head.
I have to have already seen the episode because if
I haven't, I want to know what's going on. And
I like learning and if it's something that I think,
because I'll wikipedia things just watching TV on my left
and I'll just Wikipedia things and learned about them as
a show happens. Background actors, we're watching The Crown right now,

(35:00):
and that's what we're doing too. It's like, first, that's
all I did the first three episodes until I trusted
it and then I just went with it. But I
fact checked every part of The Crown. Fantastic, right, it's great.
It's great. Do you feel like you're learning because I
did do. I feel like I haven't learned in a
long time about history, and I gave zero craft about
the royal family. I'm totally invested in. I know, we're like, well,
who's going to be the next this? And who's the

(35:21):
next that? You know going forward? And were you amazed
that Queen Elizabeth was never supposed to be the queen
like that blow She wasn't even in a line for it.
And her we're only like four episodes in, so don't well,
but that's the but I know that that that's part
of history. Yes, no, no, and that's in the first four.
And her uncle was the freaking king. He quit because

(35:42):
he was dating a Kardashian. Basically, it's wherever Dave Heywood
Lady and a Belle. I'm talking about music. You guys
just went to New York for the Grammys, I guess
you and Charles did. Hillary just had the babies, so
she didn't go. Was that timing always? Oh? This made
cheat well. To be honest, I'll have to walk you
through it because it was, um just crazy the way

(36:03):
it happened. I mean, we were on the red carpet,
me and Charles went up to New York with our
wives to the Grand News and we have a four
week old little girl at home, and so we had
to leave her for the day, which we did, okay,
but really Mr but um, we got up there, we're
on the red carpet, We're doing interviews and stuff, and
we were kind of joking because it's been kind of
a the timeline of when she's supposed to have When
you have twins, you having a little early. Um, that's

(36:24):
just what happens with twins because there's twice the fun
in there. So you have twins early, then what your
schedule due date is? Um for space reasons. Uh So anyways,
we knew it was gonna be sometime soon. But we
literally we get off the red carpet or we get
done with the show and we go have dinner and
we're just group texting. We group text meet Charles and Hillary.
We like group text all the time, just like, oh

(36:45):
my gosh, you know, how are you feeling? What's going on?
Just silly stuff, animated jifts, the whole nine yards, just
fun group text And we were texting at ten thirty
or eleven, and then we all went to bed at
midnight or something and I woke up at six to
go to the airport and had like ten miss texts.
You know when you wake up and you have like
all these miss texts. You're like, oh God, what's going on.

(37:06):
Sure enough, she's like, we went to the hospital, blah
blah blah, we had the babies. I'm like, what we
were texting at ten o'clock last night and everything? She
I thought she was like joking about, like, you guys
are making me laugh with this cardboard cutout that we
brought to the Grannies of Hillary. Y'all are making me
have contractions and laugh. And I thought I thought she
was joking. I was like, are you serious? You must
have been serious about contractions. But sure enough, so literally

(37:29):
the night of the Grannies she had the twin girls
and so, um, I haven't met him yet. Uh, they've
just a few days ago, and so it's it's awesome.
We've been getting some beautiful photos from her in texts
and stuff. So um, but I'm throwed for him. That's awesome.
How what was the dynamic with because Hillary his husband
who I know? So I'm talking about people like I
don't know them, but who I know? Like her husband's

(37:50):
a drummer. How was that whole thing with the band
And there's now there's another influence that's kind of on
the inside of the band without actually being the band
like that dynamic also has to change things up a
bit right of having her husband. Again, he's on the
inside because he's with Hillary, but he's not really part
of the band. No one else could do it with him.

(38:12):
He's a he is such a he's such a team
player and such a great I mean, he's a badass drummer.
Let me just go ahead and lead with that. Uh,
lead with that. He is in our band because he
is one of the best drummers there is. He really
is from a technical standpoint, his power, his intuitiveness for

(38:32):
where we go on a live show. Um, again, it
works great. I mean really, it's not like a there's
never been any kind of like a dissension of like, um,
you know, I handle a lot of the band stuff,
UM and so I reach out to him all the
time independently of like, hey, we gotta go do this
rehearsal or um our our keyboard players technically our band leader.

(38:54):
But UM, I kind of enjoy doing all that stuff
and organizing that. UM. I like I enjoy working with
like the TV shows, like when we performed on the
A c M S last year. UM I really enjoyed,
like working with Rack and working with the producers and
U and l V and the horn section and the band.
Thanks man, that was that was a really cool man,
Thank you, And it kind of everybody's eyes got real big.

(39:18):
It's very loud. God, you should heard it backstage in
the locker room. It's like annoyingly loud. But it was
a great moment. But I love doing that stuff. But
but I mean, Chris has been such a amazing piece
to our whole lady A world. It really, I mean,
it all just works. I'm not trying to be I'm
not trying to like just always blow smoke. And I
think we've said that plenty of times. I mean it

(39:38):
genuinely works between all of us, really really well. So
you can play guitar, play mandelin. I don't think things.
I've seen you play piano and guitar. I'd saramon man
main two that I have you still play maths? Are
you do you practice? Do you still have to practice
or is it mostly up there? Um? I don't practice.
I mean I kind of play for fun, But I

(40:01):
don't you ever just grab it at home and play
oh God all the time. So you still enjoy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I have a studio room upstairs. Um, much like this room.
Just a great kind of home studio room with a
full pro tools rig and then about twenty guitars and stuff.
So um bazooki, which is like a bigger mandolin Irish mandolin.
And um, I can keep a beat decent, Yeah, I

(40:23):
can keep a beat decent. I mean a lot of
the stuff you do now is programmed, so you like
use a little keyboard pad just to like get a
kick and snare, and you wake up the middle of
night and go have an idea. You you have to
go get it out of your head. Yeah, I have
to go put it down. Um. And a lot of
minor musical you know. Um, I normally start musically, So
for me, it's a lot of like no, no, you

(40:44):
know here a chord progression or um here a kind
of groove or I don't know, I need you now
open you know, don't don't don't what don't what? What
did that come from? My Grojas came up with that
piano part. I have to give him a hundred percent
of credit. Um. But we wrote that with Josh kere
Um early in our career and it kind of went

(41:06):
in the back pocket for a while. I mean we
wrote it after our first record, which had love Don't
Live Here, um and looking for a Good Time and uh,
I run to You were our first three singles, and
let me have something. This here, here, here's looking I'm
just looking for good I run to you said you've

(41:28):
run to you. It was on the first record. It
went test well, still gets played a lot, yeah, even
though it was from the first record. And listen to
those lyrics in our society today, Tom Douglas. Tom Douglas
sat in that chair and bloo did he come here?

(41:48):
He talked about you guys really yeah, and gathering around
the piano. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a beautiful little farm
and our beautiful home mountain, you know, Franklin or whatever,
and just an old piano. And he's such a poet.
It's just so artistic. I'm like, I like want to
be him. I would fangirl him just even though we've
written with him a dozen times. Like I would fan
girl him just about everything. Yeah, I've been lucky enough

(42:10):
to sit next to some really mind blowing, lye awesome
people that I only appreciate way later because in the moment,
and that's got to be like that with you at
times to you're doing this big in the moment, you're
just trying to get through it and not suck and
go back at it and go Yeah, that was awesome.
It was so cool. That was a poem which we
told that story, but our bass player jokes us about

(42:33):
that a lot, but it was it was a poem
time it'd written called I Run to You, and it
was just all these things that he runs from, pessimists
and prejudice. Right, he told the story, he was like
he was like actually running I think maybe the Music
City Marathon, but he had all these visions of things
that you run from. I mean, how deep is that?
You know? Like I mean it's like, like, why can't
I think of that kind of stuff. He's just that

(42:53):
kind of guy and has lived a lot of great
life and and had you know, his ups and downs
that he writes and shares about. But yeah, that started
with a poem and we basically took his poem and
kind of put music to it um and then we
got into it so righting for the next record, we
had a writing compointment with Josh Kire and we never
written with him before, but he had written before he
cheats for carry Underwood, and uh. We went in there

(43:16):
and wrote one song first for about an hour, and
it was kind of quick, and I just didn't feel
like a good song. Um right, it was a quick
right he had had um, he had had like half
of it done. It was a song called young Love,
and it just didn't feel like us. It didn't feel
like us. And we finished it and I was like yeah,

(43:37):
and then it was like one of those things. Charles
was like, why aren't we just staying write another song?
And I was like, I mean, we're all single and
nothing to do. I was like, sounds great, I'm here.
So we started writing another song and um, Charles had
some melodies on the guitar. He had just started playing
guitar actually and learned a few chords on the acoustics,
so he came up with some of the melody on
the verse d d da da da da da da

(43:58):
no no uh um. And then we kind of just
sailed off from there, and you know, we wrote it
really quick. I'd say in an hour as well. Needs
you now happen fast? Some of the some songs take
like six hours or a few days or a couple
of writing sessions. We Needs You Now was quick. I
run to you. It was pretty quick. You finished Needs

(44:19):
You Now. And it's just a song. It's just a song.
I didn't think it would Um. We sat on it
for probably eight months, just sitting in our iTunes playlist
and our very last label meeting to cut with Paul
Worley for that Needs You Now record, which it was
not obviously titled inn Um. I remember, and again it's

(44:39):
just a beautiful testament. I think Charles and his memory
and his passion and ear from music, he was like,
what about that? Remember that song we wrote Josh here
that day. You know, it's kind of like it sounds
just like it'd be a cool album track, you know,
kind of one of those like kind of insider songs
that like people just love the vibe, you know, it's
it could probably have like a cool vibe. Um, what

(44:59):
if we know in the the acoustic demo, I gotta
play you some of that. I mean the acoustic demo
is just we're fumbling all over the melody, you know,
It's like he messes up a lyric and it was
just all over the place. The acoustic demo was really
just it was just a voice in the moe from
our phone, and so it sounded really rough. But we
were like a couple of people in the room Autumn House,

(45:19):
Mike Dungan, Um, they all kind of perked up there
like that could be kind of cool. Why don't you
guys try that? And so still we didn't know what
was happening. We got in the studio and recorded it,
and I think once we got in there and Paul
Worlely got his hands on it, he made so the
piano part, Mike Rojas was tinkering around, you know when
you're warming up in the studio, and he started to
kind of do that on the outro of the song

(45:41):
and we were like, man, do that on the intro.
That's like a hook. That sounds like one of those
big hooks. The baseline, this guy named Craig Young play
that Paul Worley got. I could geek out on these
guys names for for for hours. But um, some of
the bass playing, piano playing guitar, I mean me and
Paul played about acoustic guitars on that song. So when
it gets to the chorus on the song, acoustics, So

(46:04):
this is an old um I won't go down this
tangent forever. This is an old Crossley Steels in Nash
and Young trick that Paul Whorley knew where you kind
of if you have like up to twenty to thirty acoustics,
that makes it feel like the whole song chugs along
really like it's like a wall of sound, right, So
if you notice on the course there's just this jinging, jinginginging,

(46:25):
straight kind of thing. And that's about acoustics in the background.
I mean, And it's not the same if you want
to in to in today's world, you could just duplicate him. Yeah,
but to have different guitars with different woods and different
strings from different eras in different times, all surrounding in stereo,
different guitars all playing. And you know, Paul plays a

(46:47):
little different than I play, and I play a little
different and fingers some of the chords differently with different voicings.
But just those little nuances on the track. When Paul
Worley got and and dug in with that song, I mean,
I gotta give it to micro Haas. The piano stuff
is amazing on that song, and I got to give
it to Paul worly Man. He is such a champion
for great art and he takes his time with it,

(47:08):
and that can be hard with patients and studio because
we all want to just pump out a track in
one day, but Paul will sit on it and work
on it and work on it, and then two months
later you're like, wow, this thing sounds timeless. So you
write it and you think it's a song. Then it's
sitting there and you think this is a song. You
cut it. When do you realize that it could be special? Um?

(47:31):
Once we cut it and we started showing it to people,
so we recorded it and we started playing it for
you know, our friends. UM. I mean I wasn't married
at the time. I wouldn't say my wife, but friends
and people at the label and management, and they're like, man,
that's like that could be really a crazy cool kind
of first single. Um. And we're like, no, we need

(47:53):
to have a tempo. Isn't that what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to have like the rocking tempo is your
first song. And they were like, man, it just just
feels like a piece of art. It feels like art,
And we were all about it. We just thought it
would be the album track, but we were all about it.
I mean it was, but it was all of our
favorite song that we had recorded for the needs you
now for that record. So you have the song and

(48:13):
it goes to country radio first and it splashes, Yeah
it does. At what point do you realize that this
splash is bigger than what we expected it to be.
So we started getting calls. I mean, to this day,
nothing will ever happen like this ever again. It just
won't the stars aligned. I mean we started getting calls
from every format, um, and then all around the world.

(48:38):
I mean literally I'd have to pull up the emails.
I remember emails from like, hey, there's just you know,
the people in Italy heard it, people in Romania heard it,
people in Russian and Australia and Japan, all these people
all around the world want to start spinning the song.
And I was like, what, like, how did you know?
I mean, it literally spread like wildfire, I mean country video.

(49:00):
It went to number one for four or five weeks, um,
and stay there for four or five weeks, and then
we sent it to pop radio, um, you know, which
we caught a little flak. Four people. Do you know
when you kind of crossover or send a song out
to a different format and stuff. So I get that,
but it went huge. It just went massive. I played
at Pop Radio. I remember when the song came and

(49:22):
that's when I remember when that band with the crazy
name was the band of the song that we're playing
at Pop. At what point did it feel like where
did this is a whole new ball game. It's a
whole new ball I mean the international stuff, Canada and Europe.
It took off in Canada and Europe and we started
getting request to, you know, play in London, and play

(49:43):
in Toronto, and go play in Australia. I mean that
was like for me, we felt like the little kids
from the country who get to go play in the
big cities all around the world. Um, did you get
lost in that? Was it so much in a quick
beat or did you actually we're able to dissect it
a bit and enjoy it. That's a tough one. That's
a really tough question. There's definitely parts that we didn't dissect.

(50:05):
I mean, we didn't have anything to gauge it off of,
so it was all happening for the first time. You know.
It's like whenever if anything ever happens and something takes off,
you don't know what to gauge it against this it
never happened before. Um, did you reach out to anyone
who had crossed over inside the That's always what I wonder,
because there are a few that it crossed over inside

(50:28):
the format that you said, Hey, I'm going into the
pop world, in the hot A C world. You know,
what are the things that happened to you that I
don't expect? Did you have We didn't have anybody, I guess.
I mean our manager, Gary Borman did a great job. Um,
at the time, we were with Gary Borman, and he
did a great job of having a lot of experience
with a lot of pop acts and also Keith Urban.
He represents Keith Urban, and Keith had a lot. He

(50:49):
has a lot of music that really goes around the world.
I don't know if people really realize how big he
is in Europe, in Canada and Australian stuff. So he
had some experience with with Keith with a lot of
internationals success. But it was just the three of us
kind of strapping on from holding on for dear life.
I mean, it was a wild, crazy ride. Um, it's

(51:09):
so hard you know, I watched people on TV now
that go through these things. You know, when we were
at the Grammys two, I'm watching Alicia Carra and all
the new artists, and you know when Sam Hunt was
taken off, and then you know, you watch all these
acts in Stapleton, what he's going through, and whoa, it's crazy.
I mean, it's insane. Are it's all the time. And

(51:30):
you kind of lose yourself in that because you think
you're supposed to say yes to everything, and you do
say yes to everything. And I mean, I remember a
vivid moment. Taylor Swift was about a year ahead of
us in country music. She won New Artist of the
Year at the A c m S and the c
M A. She was kind of like a year ahead
of us, winning a lot of the new new stuff
when she was coming out in country and I just
remember watching her in her trajectory and how much she

(51:53):
just killed it and kept going and kept going. And
I think we hit a point. So we after the
night of the Grammys and oh nine or two thousand
and ten, I forget the year where we won for
record and Song the Year on five in one night
for needs You Now, I mean song of the Year
and um single was single one of the grant No.

(52:15):
There there were a few country ones and then a
few of the country and then the two all genres. Yeah,
I mean like, um, I mean it was crazy. Dude,
Live Your Life by Rihanna was in that category. You know.
New York New York by Jay z was in the category.
Were you getting people in the spectrum of not country going, Hey,
I love that to you? Was like, whoa you even

(52:36):
know who we are? Yeah, I mean like Lady Gaga
came up that year, and um, some of the guys
from a couple of the other big bands, but yeah,
you get some of the like hip hop artist John Mayor.
We met John Mayor for the first time. UM. I
loved your interview of his by the way, Uh, really
cool because I grew up in Georgia. I loved his
history at in Atlanta with Clay Cook and stuff. Um,

(52:57):
which is the whole Clay Cook, It's crazy, It's crazy
out the whole for those are clays now with Zach Brown,
Clay is awesome, but him and John were together. I
love it. Christian Bush was in a few days ago.
There's one that just went up, you know, Christian was
in the john S Chan was the first band to
ever play at the Attic, and that's where John kind
of came up. But again we're nerding on something that

(53:19):
was there a part of you. And again I'm just
jumping out. But let me finish that thought real quick,
just because I was gonna say we as a band,
I think made a conscious I didn't mean to cut
you off with that felt, but we as a band.
I remember after we won all those Grammy's, everything came in,
go play around the world, do everything. I remember thinking,
the three of us discussing because you know, we're like,
I just don't I don't want to lose myself. I

(53:42):
don't want to. I don't want to work that much.
You know. We kind of hit this point in our
career where we said we could work three hundred and
sixty five days a year because there's enough stuff that's
coming in right now that we could. But I don't
want to. You know, I want to. I want to
work and play hundred and fifty two hundred shows, you know,
do radio, do some great fun things, and record, but

(54:05):
I don't want to work every day of the year.
And so everything came in where we could have lost
ourselves in it. But I would say between the three
of us and the perks of being in a group,
you're able to have conversation with each other and work
through things together. And we kind of said, you know what,
this is amazing the success. Let's keep it going with
with as much as we can, but not at the
sacrifice of ourselves. So where my mind goes you're telling

(54:26):
the story is that instead of thinking how amazing this is,
is that something great happens. How in the world do
you follow that up? Because nothing's ever going to follow
that up? Nothing, nothing. It was a perfect storm. So
you know, what do you put out after when it
doesn't do the same. Do you feel like a failure
even though it's doing amazing relatively to everything else except

(54:49):
that one lightning in a bottle? I mean, I can't
ever use the word failure. I mean, everything that we've
done in music, I just feel lucky that we get
to do music. Honestly, Um So that was just beyond
any wildest expectation. And it was just a rare moment.
I mean, you know, because it's also the first time
somebody hears about it. Let me imagine the first time
you hear about a band too, there's kind of that

(55:10):
you can't get enough of it. I mean, the first
time I heard about you know him this you know
pop trio, I was like, oh my god. I watched
every YouTube you could possibly watch, which I love them
and obsessed with them. Um female pop group that everybody
wants to spell it. But yeah, I don't know if
I said it right. That's how I don't either. And
when you said this, I know you're smart. When you said, Jeff,

(55:32):
that's how people that really know say it. But the
rest of us say gift, and so all the term
now with the normals, not you us, the normals the
down below. Everybody says a gift. But when someone says Jeff,
you know, they really know what that. Yeah. I didn't
just come to play today. This is real? So need

(55:53):
you now? Crushes it? What's the next single? Was the
American Honey, which was but was there a bit of huh,
I wonder if this one cross over because it's so
big the time before? Yeah? Of course, of course, I
mean absolutely. I mean it's hard, it's really tough. You
put all this pressure on yourself. I don't drive myself crazy. Yeah,

(56:15):
did you telling the story. I'm going I'm insane point
through the ride because I'm going the next ride. I
gotta start building. If I knew what I knew now
about my personality type and everything I've learned about myself
in the last six months at you know, counseling and
on site and everything, oh my gosh, I would have
it would have been It would have been helpful to
know that much about myself. But maybe I'm grateful I
didn't know as much about myself and I just we

(56:37):
kept our foot on the gas and just kept going.
But yeah, I mean you we ran into that for
the next record, I think for the following record, but
those songs did well at country. Um, we had just
a Kiss and We on the Night, which came out
on our third record. But I don't know, then we
started asking. I think we hit a point where we
started second guessing ourselves, you know, which is all let

(56:57):
into I mean, you know, if anybody knows our evolution
and our journey, you know, leading into a UM. You know,
we had some songs maybe people don't know about them
because they didn't work, But we had a few singles
at radio that didn't do anything. UM, Goodbye Town was
a struggle for us. Um, Freestyle didn't really work. Hello
World was really a struggle. Um, And why do you

(57:18):
think those were a struggle? What what moved well? At
that point in time, I think some lady in a
belle and fatigue began. I really do too much. I
think they're too much lady A too much, you know,
and and it's just a natural cycle. I get it
with anything, sports teams that always win. I mean we had,
we had, we had won a lot, and our songs

(57:39):
had been all number ones for a while, and then
you know, you get to a point where if the
song isn't maybe as special, it's like, well we've heard,
We've already heard that style from them. We get what
they do. So there were a couple of miss mrs
for us. I mean that kind of led into I
think some second guessing for us as lady A, we
kind of started to lean more on the business side

(58:00):
of like, well, we gotta get some hits again, guys,
and then we just like what happened to us when
we made music that we didn't care about where we
lived in Josh Kelly's house and we wrote I Run
to You, and we wrote Love don't live here, and
we wrote needs You Now? I mean, what happened to that?
You know? How did we get that? And and those
songs came about because we weren't thinking. And then we

(58:21):
went into a period of our career where we started
thinking too much. I think and and I think anybody
that probably hits seven years, ten years, fifteen years, and
there's been a lot of great people in this seat
on your podcast that probably would say the same thing.
There's just ebbs and flows, and you do you get
to that point where you you lose a little bit
of what got you where where you are. Do you
feel like you've got some of that back or all

(58:41):
of that back or a different back? For Heartbreak, I
think we got I think we got it back. I
really think we got it back. Um. I think we
said that we got it back on some earlier records. Um.
But you know, we obviously had a break, had some
time away, different projects were out, time to just kind
of reconnect with who we are. Uh And and I

(59:03):
think for Heartbreak, living together was just such a fun
experience making the record that kind of that helped us
get it back. I mean to like wake up and
you know, laugh and make coffee and you know, I
mean living together. You're a part of every little facet
of each other's lives. And it made us laugh again
and made us feel young and made us I think, right,

(59:23):
innocent music again. I want to play something here and
you'll know it. But what's something I pulled out? All right?
Deep Jim Brickman. And this is the first time that
you guys were on something together. So this was this
song actually was on the Hot day C chart right

(59:44):
if I'm right, it did. It did pretty well. It's
I mean, really impactful, weird and moving song too. So
tell people who Jim Brickman is. Yeah, Jim Brickman is
an instrumentalist, piano player. Um. And we were writing a
lot with Victoria Shaw early on, and him and Victoria
Shaw we're good friends. And uh, they said, Jim's looking
for a featured vocalist for this song never Alone and

(01:00:08):
Hillary when we killed the song, it's a perfect fit
for her. She's so believable in the song. It was
the first time Lady Annabellum was recognized as Lady and
abell Um. It was before we had a record deal before.
So what do you do on this song? I just
sing some harmonies, Charles just sing some harmonies. Um, it

(01:00:30):
was mostly Hillary, mostly Hillary singing lead. She wrote the song.
Hillary wrote that she wrote the lyrics. Yeah, Hillary wrote
that with Victoria shaw and maybe somebody else. Please forgive
me somebody else if you hear this, and I can't
remember who it was, but yeah, So Jim Braakman was
looking for a feature vocalist. That's kind of be cool
to see your name on something. It was, You're a
real entity whenever you're on Lady and Something to see. Uh,

(01:00:53):
you know, when it's dark at night, you're in your
car and the you know, the radio letters, you know,
they light up scrolling across. I mean to see like
you know, when it goes across Jim Brickman featuring parentheses
or whatever, Lady and a Bellum. I mean, I'll never
forget it. I mean that was that was before we
had a record deal to Victoria. Victoria Shawl really was
a huge champion um for that song and our She

(01:01:14):
was a producer on our first record and that was
a big moment for us. You talk about being a
songwriter aside from any of the Lady A stuff, meet
Charles and Luke Crazy. We had no fun that day. Yeah,
I bet it sounds like it sounds like a terrible day.
So and I with songwriters and I've gotten to know

(01:01:37):
a lot of them on a much closer level because
of doing this. This has been a great environment for
me to get to know people and they get to
ask questions I would never ask in my life. And
I've also learned that with some songwriters, when they tell
stories about their big songs, they have to almost have
revisionist history because they write so many songs and they
don't remember, but they have to have a story because
someone goes, tell me when you wrote the house to

(01:01:57):
built me, And if you don't have a story, it
kind of lets people down. So when I say do
I do you remember the day? Of course, that was
the first time we had written with Luke Um We
had we had known Luke Brian and we had talked
about writing. I mean, we were all like on our
first record and stuff, and uh, you know, he called
us out to his house. He's like, dude, if you

(01:02:18):
guys want to come over and write, and he's a
really awesome and chaotic guy. And I just remember it
being so like, you know, there's just so much going
on in his world and he's got such a awesome,
crazy family that's all over the place. And we show
up and so it was loud inside and so we
came out onto the front porch and we sat on
Luke's front porch. I mean it feels like like one
of those classic like country moments, um, you know, but

(01:02:41):
like we sat on Luke Brian's front porch and had
two guitars and and wrote this song. We wrote another one,
but this one was definitely like an amazing one and
what what what We wrote it with him and he
had some of the verse stuff going and we really
I mean, Luke had I was. I have to give
Luke credit. He had a lot of this song in
pieces is like a puzzle, like I've got this melody, man,

(01:03:02):
you know, I've got this kind of thing, this idea.
You know. I just think the lyric is brilliant. He
had the some of the lyric um and we really
find me and Charles help him finish the song. So
any songwriter would tell you there's always kind of like
and it's different, like some right I'll be there and
I'll be like, dude, I got this whole track and
I got this title and then we you know, and
you know, some there's always like somebody that has a

(01:03:24):
little bit more. And Luke had a lot of this
kind of ready to go, and so me and Charles
were there to help him finish it, come up with
the bridge, finished them the lyrics, and I mean we
we loved it because it was the first time. It
was his first number one, his very first number one.
It was the first time I'd really heard him on
a ballad that was moving. It felt really moving to
hear Luke, you know, because he's such a lot of

(01:03:44):
his tracks are big party songs, but I like the
ballads he does. I mean, drink a beer, you know
for Luke. I love I'm I love ballads kind of
more than anything. But because we record so many ballads,
we've always talked about should we just do an album
of like the ballads? I mean, we just love Do
you remember the commercial when we were younger, because we're
the same age relatively, where you'd wake up at one

(01:04:05):
of the morning and it was like now for love
songs and it was how am I supposed to live
with thatuch you? And it would go Richard Marks and
Luther Van just scroll scroll the whole time, and then
the one that they were singing would be in white
highlight and then it would change those Um. God, we
got stuff on the bus last year. I think we've
had a couple of whiskeys. But we were all just like,

(01:04:27):
this is the greatest. And I think somebody in the
band called and ordered it, you know, like there's such
great little collections of music. But yeah, I mean I
would I would sit and watch those things scroll and
they're like thirty minutes or incommercials, you know, so they
would just go on and on and on. I caught
myself in a rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos of
nineties commercials and yeah, I know. And that was when
I watched I think four different commercials of that serious

(01:04:48):
time life, their time life. Okay, I forgot. I love
songs of the nineties. I'm live Wow and again I
just remember, Man, tell me how my supposed to live
with that in it at the piano, just killing it? Man.
Well you guys ever not play needs you now? Okay,
So that's that's it. It's so fun to play. It

(01:05:09):
still is fun. Um. I would imagine one day you
get tired of it. But when the crowd responds that way.
It's it's fun, I asked, because we had a show
at the Rhyman my band or my goofy band. So
we played the rund. We invited a bunch of people
to come out, and we had we flew Hanson into play.
It was a charity thing, right, we do it for
saying you'd every year. So it's the Raging idiot million

(01:05:29):
dollars show and all. We asked him what Dirk's everybody
comes played, and so I brought Hanson in and they
just really only playing Bob. But I don't know. Both
times I had to say because they're very nice. They
couldn't have been nicer. But I remember Taylor coming up saying, hey,
listen what we'd really love to do because everybody's doing

(01:05:50):
two songs you know. Wait, Darius was out, Derek's came out,
um and never known two songs, and I said, hey,
we'd like to do this song instead. I said, great,
want you do three songs in you have to do
Umbob like the people want. That's what they want, and
the people went crazy. I was watching thirty year old
women climbed the side of stairs backstage to get a

(01:06:11):
picture and then they came up on the show and
they didn't want to play it, and so I said, hey,
would you guys just mind playing a Verston of chorus? Yeah.
I mean, I guess that song for them though, happened
at a much younger maybe you know, intersection in their lives,
and maybe they're just that was a weird time for them. Maybe,
But I mean we're all, like, you know, older, and

(01:06:32):
I mean, weren't they like teenagers really young, you know,
I think the drummer maybe like nine, yeah, something like that. Yeah.
So anyways, I don't know. Darius does it really well too.
I mean, I think he's a great champion for always
playing hold my hand, let her cry all I want
to be with you, you know. In addition all his
number ones a country, I think he's a good word.
And we're torm with him the summer, which is fun
because we're going to kind of collaborate some and come

(01:06:54):
in and out and you know, I mean, I love
playing on those songs. I want to play on that's
my Darius. My first ever radio interview when I was seventeen,
it was actually Darius, And so we've come up without
the band or just I got they I was again
my first ever interview as a teenager about to start
freshman year of college. And I was a huge hoodie fan.

(01:07:15):
So I drove an hour and a half. I don't
know if they were getna be Sony Dean. I had
no idea, and I was scared crap list and they said, hey,
you get Darius, and I was like, holy crap, and
I go and I was shaking, and he took the
microphone and just held it and led me through the interview.
And so we've kind of come up parallel and we've
both shifted formats. Naturally both got kicked back from it.
Then finally people said, okay, we believe you. And so

(01:07:38):
he's we've always been close and he's been just a
great friend to me, more than he's ever needed. But
he's coming to flowing on charity events. He drove in
from Charleston to do the Rhyman Show. He's so kind man.
He's got some party stories too, and I will always
let him tell the party story. I never want to
tell the but man the hoodie party stories. And he says,

(01:07:59):
and he said on on the air before when when
he finally writes the book, people are gonna go dang,
we heard that, you know, the who used to party?
Wait till you know there's got anybody in that era? Uh,
you know, to preface it, I don't party a lot,
but anybody in those eras, like you didn't have social media,
so you could just kind of party and go crazy
and there was like no repercussions. I guess, you know,
like when he played the show, I got him. He

(01:08:22):
came out during one but we were doing Purple Rain
and he came out and scared us, and we know
he's coming. It's like, I do this song. He just
jumped on stage and started singing. I said, okay, cool,
but we're gonna make you do an extra song. And
so I was a geek for Cracked review and then
I said, hey, let's do hold my hand and so
we played it together, him and I and it was
that and better than Ezra had Kevin come out, and
better than we did good and desperately wanting yes, total selfish. Yeah.

(01:08:44):
I remember running through the wet grass fall in and
I was like, I'm in heaven. I mean heaven to me,
those are the songs when you're a kid, and the
artist from when you were a kid. I mean more
than a superstar. The nineties stuff too, man, that nineties rock,
I mean, who didn't love that stuff? And all the
pearl jam that was going on. Crackt your review? I
mean that was I was obsessed, so obsessed with Craig review.

(01:09:07):
There was an album cut on that called Running from
an Angel, and it was running from an Angel, running
to the Devil, Devil, and and I was talking Darius
in Austin. He came into a cherryvan. He said, hey, dude,
I haven't heard that song of forever. That was my Janie,
she got high school all practice. And he goes, Man,
he goes, I've played that song in ten years. And
we're at the event and he goes, I got this

(01:09:28):
for you. They worked it out and they played the
wholl song. Oh man, I think I got a direction.
It was amazing toner a musical, a toner, that's what
they call it. Pitched perfect. So you guys are going
out with Darius, Yes, they the third one is coming
out to hitch perfect three. You guys should just at
least leave my disclaimer that my wife is obsessed and

(01:09:49):
so I kind of been doing the lunchbox. Just want
the whole thing about high loves pitch perfect kind of
good though, that's what he said to I mean, Anna
Kendrick's fun to watch, dude. She's a great singer. So
you guys are out with Darius all summer summer. Yeah,
she'll be rocking, man, I mean she was really I'll
give it to Hillary, she was, you know, like, guys,
I'm ready to go back out. Let's let's playing another tour,
another big amphitheater tour. So um, it'll be fun. We've

(01:10:12):
never like really done like um, just kind of this
co headlining thing back and forth, so it's gonna be cool. Well,
I gotta say I was looking forward to this because
you should be the lead talker man like this. If
you have like an hour, I can I can do
like this is I'm just fantastic. I didn't know what
to expect because Charles has such a big personality and

(01:10:35):
he's also the front man talker to right and again,
I like Charles and I get along with great with Charles.
But you know, you come in and you know you
you take your role and you go, yeah, when you
need me, I'm here. Well, I just I don't feel
like I can like I'm hard and like in a
one to two minutes setting. It's just hard for me
to get deep because I think I'm always thinking, you know,

(01:10:56):
really deep, and so it's hard for me to like
fully get there in a minute or two a radio.
So I hope you feel like you got there a
bit here. I totally feel like this was enjoyable. Thank
you my first podcast. Look at that guy over here.
Look at this guy, Dave Haywood, the unicorn, never by
himself out. I've never had a conversation until he came
over to the house. And thanks for coming up to hill.

(01:11:17):
Thanks coming over to the house. Thanks for having me. Seriously,
we've done our in our in ten minutes or so.
It does like that. Huh, that's awesome, man, Thanks for
having me twice. He went, huh, I've never been asked,
oh that. Those are the rewards for me when someone goes,
you know what. I didn't thought about it that way.
So I feel like it's been a good conversation. I
learned a lot. Thank at this guy genius over here. Mike,

(01:11:38):
you think you want to add Yeah, me too, man,
I'm completely satisfied. All right, Dave Haywood, go watch him
and Charles and Hillary Ladiana Bellham and Darius throughout the
summer and Heartbreak you may listen to a year from
now because podcasts live forever. Their newest album, after Heartbreak,
it's called insert here, is amazing. I love it. It's
probably my favorite new record when you agree with a
lot of hard in this one. You really found yourself

(01:12:00):
as a baby. Yes, yes, yes, all right. We'll see
you guys next time. Thanks