Charles Kelley is going it alone. Well, temporarily. The Lady Antebellum member and his bandmates Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood appeared on ABC’s Good Morning Americayesterday (Monday, October 5th) to share the news that Charles will be releasing a solo album in the near future, with a new single out this week called “The Driver.”
Charles co-wrote the song, and it was among the first he recorded when he realized that he was going down a different path than Lady A music. He tells us: “I had written a song called ‘The Driver’ and I had a couple other songs, and I said, ‘I think I’m gonna go in and cut some demos and just see if I can kind of try to create a little bit of a sound that might be the next Lady Antebellum record,’ and as we started working on it I was like, ‘Gosh, this feels really good,’ but I said, ‘I don’t know if this fits the band,’ and so it was one of those things I just kind of held onto and didn’t think much about it, and then when we kind of brought up taking a break I said, ‘Well, guys, I’ve got some stuff I’ve worked on and I said, ‘I will only do this with your blessing.’ I told them about it and they were like, ‘Dude, go for it!’ They love it, and with the assurance that I’m never leaving this band. I think we all understand that we’ve worked too hard as a band to build up this fan base and this collection of songs that we would never turn our backs on it but we do realize that if we don’t get off the hamster wheel every now and then the stress will drive you a little crazy, so I think that was the thing for me was like making music with no agenda was really fun.”
“The Driver” features special guests Dierks Bentley and Eric Paslay.
No release date for Charles’ solo project has been announced.
