Lady Antebellum have done plenty of things throughout their 12-year career, but they just achieved another career first, thanks to Little Big Town. When Little Big Town sang with Lady Antebellum on “The Thing That Wrecks You,” from Lady A’s latest Ocean album, it marked the first time that the trio invited another guest to appear on their album.
“We’ve never had a feature on one of our albums ever, and so this is our very first one,” Haywood told ABC. “That song and working with Little Big Town was a dream. Love their harmonies.”
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The collaboration came about thanks in part to Charles Kelley‘s determination to get the quartet to sing with the trio. “It was a song that a songwriter friend, Kate York, sent me,” Kelley recounted. “Tenille [Townes] was singing the demo. And it just floored me. There was something very dark. I just kept coming back to it.”
“And so it’s funny, after we recorded, I was down at the beach with Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook,” he continued. “I said, ‘We’ve got to do something together.’ And they said, ‘Well, what do we want to do?’ And I said, “Well, we’ve got a couple songs.’”
Kelley sent them two songs, one of them being “The Thing That Wrecks You,” and the rest is musical history.
“They flipped out over ‘The Thing That Wrecks You,’” Charles remembered. “And so to put together seven voices on one song was such an interesting, fun challenge. It’s definitely an art piece on the record.”
Kelley previously opened up about “The Thing That Wrecks You,” revealing this has been a bucket list for him for a long time.
“I remember when they had ‘Boondocks’ out,” Kelley told PopCulture.com and other media. “It was right when we had just got started. We even even had a lot of people like, ‘I don’t know, it might be confusing.’ Two lead singers, this weird name, and we’re like, ‘Look, at Little Big Town, man. They switch off vocals, and they do this whole thing, and look at Fleetwood Mac.’ And so, they’re one of those acts that early on, really did kind of a even pave the way for our group.”
“The Thing That Wrecks You” is on Ocean, available now at LadyAntebellum.
Photo Credit: Getty / Roger Kisby
