Lady A knows what a song can do. That power inspired the superstar country group's new single, album and tour, which is now underway.
"We wanted to title everything that," says Dave Haywood of "What a Song Can Do." "It's just amazing how songs have affected all three of our lives, how they've set us on a path where we said 'We can keep doing this — this is really fun.' Music has totally changed our lives."
Lady A, formerly known as Lady Antebellum, also includes Hillary Scott and Charles Kelley. Also along for the tour are Carly Pearce, Niko Moon and Tenille Arts.
The "What a Song Can Do (Chapter One)" album, which follows "Ocean" (2019), includes the first single, "Like a Lady," along with the title track.
The second half of the collection comes later this year, a new concept for Lady A.
"I think we're always looking for ways to keep fans engaged," Haywood says. "We wrote a lot of music — 50 to 60 songs and recorded 14 or 15 of them. We wanted to pace them out to the fans. It's a different approach.
"The landscape of music is always changing. There's different ways for people to hear music. We gave fans the first batch, prepared them, and then we'll give them the second batch."
During the pandemic, forced into stillness and separation, the band found solace in songwriting.
"I couldn't see Charles and Hillary for three months," Haywood says. "That was the longest we've gone without seeing each other. I see them more than my wife and kids."
Together, they wrote on Zoom — awkwardly at first, until getting the hang of it. They wrote about things that hit them, things they were going through, resulting in of-the-moment songs such as "Worship What I Hate," "Talk of This Town," "Fire" and "Like a Lady."
Haywood says the new music is unlike Lady A's earlier work. The circumstances leading to the album were different, and the group members are in different places in life.
Lady A takes the new songs out on the road on the "What a Song Can Do Tour 2021," its first since a 2018 co-headlining tour with Darius Rucker. The tour will definitely give fans what they want, Haywood says.
"We're huge fans of making sure we play the music people want to hear — what they've come to hear," he says, listing "American Honey," "I Run to You" and "Need You Now." "The focal point is playing music people know."
In addition to the band's biggest hits, there will be a few songs from the new album.
Haywood hopes the tour experience will be meaningful to fans. "Personally, we missed that experience of live music so much — bringing that joy and community to people," he says. "It can still feel like a wild time. We're sorta emerging from it — but are we?
"Getting back out there and experiencing a tour again is so good for the soul."
Being back on the road "feels incredible," he says, and the group is grateful to be performing again. "The nerves, the excitement, the celebration of community. ... It's an honor to get back in front of the fans. We've missed it so much."
The pandemic forced Lady A to cancel its tour last year. "That was such a blow because Charles and Hillary and I love to share the music that we write in a room with an audience," Haywood says.
He says it feels like an eternity since Lady A last toured. The band played a Las Vegas residency in 2019, its last performances before the pandemic.
The band eased back onto the concert stage with a couple of gigs at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth, along with some Grand Ole Opry performances this year. The group was invited for induction by Darius Rucker during the filming of NBC's "Grand Ole Opry: 95 Years of Country Music."
"That was a huge highlight for us," Haywood says. "There wasn't a lot that kept playing during the pandemic from a live standpoint, but the Opry found a way to do it with no fans for a long time, then small crowds and social distancing."
The group's debut (as Lady Antebellum) at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, was in 2007.
Haywood says the group changed its name to be more inclusive and to distance itself from the word antebellum. But the group failed to realize there is already a veteran blues singer named Lady A, so now lawyers are involved.
"It's had its challenges, though nothing has changed from our focal point," Haywood says. "We wanted to make sure that all people felt invited — that there are no barriers to our music. We stayed the course. And everything that has happened around it, that's OK."
