Lady Antebellum's Charles Kelley Reflects on 'Personal Demons' in Track on 'Ocean'

Lady Antebellum's seventh studio album, Ocean, will be released on Nov. 15. While the trio, made [...]

By Gayle Thompson

Lady Antebellum's seventh studio album, Ocean, will be released on Nov. 15. While the trio, made up of Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood, has revealed some details of their next record, Kelley is opening up about one of the more personal tracks on Ocean, which reflected on his own struggles.

"Two to three years ago, we definitely were hitting a bit of a patch where it was just, where are we going? What are we doing?" Kelley reflected to PopCulture.com and other media. "And I know, personally, I was definitely struggling with a lot of just personal demons of, 'What is it all for? What do I want out of this life?' I wrote 'Be Patient With My Love' with Ben West and Dave Barnes, and it was almost like this cathartic, hands down the most honest song I'd ever written.

"I sent it to everybody, and the reaction was like, 'Wow,'" he continued. "And I was like, 'Maybe I need to be more honest in my songwriting.' It just started to kind of snowball into the rest of the record."

Kelley's transparency in "Be Patient With My Love" opened up the record to being the most honest and vulnerable Lady Antebellum has ever been, in almost all of the tracks on the project.

"Songs like 'Crazy Love,' and Hillary writes, 'Let It Be Love,' which has a lot of vulnerable in the lyrics of that," Kelley acknowledged. "[The] thing about humility in me, sometimes I put myself a little higher than I should be. When I heard that song I said, 'Can I sing that second verse?' So that is me, man. We just really wanted to be incredibly vulnerable and pull a little layer back because we felt like maybe at times we haven't.

"We were just in this season where we got a lot closer in the really dark time that we had," he added, "and it brought us into this realization and appreciation of where we are and what we get to do, and kind of re-energized us moving forward. I think it just naturally came out. And usually those are always the best songs."

The debut single from Ocean, "What If I Never Get Over You," is in the Top 10. Lady A also just released the album's title track. Pre-order Ocean, and download their single, at LadyAntebellum.com.

Photo Credit: Getty / Ethan Miller

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