Lady Antebellum Tour Provides ‘Newfound Excitement’

Lady Antebellum's Own the Night tour continues, taking the trio all over the United States, Canada and Europe, which includes a date with Bruce Springsteen. The hectic traveling may result in some dark under-eye circles, but those are badges of pride.

"No rest for the weary," Charles Kelley tells CMT. "We love it, though. It's fun. Before, we were always opening up for artists, so now to finally be headlining in arenas ... we were even asking if we could add dates. We're in the groove now. It's such a different feeling of touring when you're actually the headliners. We have a newfound excitement for touring."

The trio are especially excited about heading overseas, even though they know they will have their work cut out for them. "We're more of a baby band over there," Charles continues. "People overseas just know us from the Need You Now album, or even just a couple of songs, which will be kind of exciting for us. You almost feel like, 'All right, you've gotta get over there and win them over.' This is the first time that most of them will have seen us, so I think there's gonna be a cool energy when we head over there for that."

Lady A find performing much easier now, with three platinum albums and nine Top 10 tunes to their credit. "I think having a few more singles on the radio, it just helps you pace out the shows so much more," Charles explains. "When we first started, when you had one or two songs that people know of yours from the radio, and then you have to pace out an hour and a-half show. It's really hard. Especially when you only have one or two albums. So now having three albums of material ... you can really feel like you're hitting them over the head a lot more with songs they know and can sing along to. I just feel like it keeps it much more of a high-energy show throughout the night."

The threesome will play for a decidedly smaller crowd later this month, when they perform a special show for the juniors and seniors of Henryville High School in Henryville, Ind., followed by a charity ball in the small town, to raise money in the wake of a damaging storm.

"That started with the idea to go and play a prom," Dave Haywood explains. "Hillary [Scott] had thought of this about a year and a-half ago, when we were in the studio recording 'Dancin' Away With My Heart.' It's actually turned into something a lot bigger than that. Henryville had that terrible devastation from the tornadoes months ago, and a couple of high schools around the area sent in videos. They wanted for us to be able to come and play their [Henryville's] prom. So we're heading there for a special event for the high school, and then we're actually able to do something a little bigger and open it up to the whole community."

With their traveling schedule, it may seem like the three bandmates wouldn't have time to even think about a new album, but they actually say it's the ideal time to focus on their next project. "If you pulled out our phones, every phone's got about four or five ideas in progress at all times," shares Dave. "We have a mobile studio that we take on the road ... So we do probably 90 percent of our writing on there."

"We've written probably about 20 or 25 [songs], but we probably have 10 that we're really excited about, and we'll keep writing," adds Charles. "It's so funny. You always love the newest thing you've written, so we have to put them all together and really live with them."

Lady Antebellum will head to Florida this weekend for a series of shows in Jacksonville, Tampa and West Palm Beach. Keep track of their concert schedule here.

Watch Lady A 'On the Record'

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