Last year, four-time Grammy nominee Kelsea Ballerini returned to her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee to headline her first arena show at Thompson Boling Arena. On October 29, she'll expand and headline New York's Madison Square Garden, which will serve as a preview of her first arena tour, which kicks off in January.
“I grew up going to shows at Thompson-Boling Arena, and arenas have always been the goal, but this is a huge leap to make — going from clubs and theaters to the bigger clubs and then making that leap [to arenas] it's scary. I always knew that if I was ever lucky enough to take that leap, I wanted to do it right,” says Ballerini. Bulletin board.
He adds, “My business manager jokes with me, he says, 'You've always produced bigger than the room you're in.' And it's true. I've always been invested in putting on a show, not just standing there and presenting music, but really making a world that people can step into.”
When she plays Madison Square Garden, Ballerini will build on that ethos, highlighting songs from her fifth full-length album Patternsis out today (October 25) via Black River Entertainment. As with her previous albums, Ballerini has been steadfast in not just “building a world,” but bringing fans deep into that ecosystem. Patterns finds her emerging from the wreckage of divorce and finding new solid ground.
Contrasted with the shocking thematic terrain of 2023's EP Rolling Up The Welcome Matcreated during the breakup of Ballerini's previous marriage to singer-songwriter Morgan Evans, Ballerini's new 15-song album finds her overlapping instinctive pop wisdom with lyrics that celebrate her current moment, but also explore the habits and emotional repetitions that have proven beneficial. or be an obstacle.
In the last year, the Ballerina found new love Foreign Banks Actor Chase Stokes — but fans shouldn't expect an album full of lush, romantic fare. She extolls friendship on “I Would, Would You,” has her best and worst choices on “Baggage,” and advocates self-acceptance on “Nothing Really Matters.”
“I think people expected me to make a really happy record, but I would push back and say it's probably a step further than that. Instead of happiness, there's more peace on the record,” he says. “It comes from just having my st and this pile of luggage with this beautiful sunset [on the cover of Patterns] it is the personification of that, of sitting on all that has made me, me. I think it's about not apologizing for the messiness or humanity we have growing up and just letting it be a part of you. You hear a lot about not only my patterns that I obviously have as a unique individual, but also the patterns that I experience with the people closest to me. Some of it is celebratory and happy, and some of it is confronting, and there's so much freedom in that.”
To create the album, Ballerini held a series of writing gigs in St. Louis, East Tennessee and the Bahamas with a quartet of close friends and collaborators, the album's co-producer/co-writer Alysa Vanderheym and songwriters Hillary Lindsey. Jessie Jo Dillon and Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town.
Although Ballerini says she didn't set out to work exclusively with women, she notes, “I didn't know where to start, but I knew that if I was going to start, I had to feel extremely safe. I asked these four women to start the journey with me because they are my friends and I knew that if anything came of a shelter, they would be with them.”
Trusting her instincts proved prescient, as the first retreat together hammered out the songs “Sorry Mom,” “Baggage” and “Two Things.”
“On the bus ride home, I said, 'Hey, I think I'm going to lock the door to invite more partners into the process. I think I just want this record to be some version of the five of us.” From then on, it was just us,” he says.
Ballerini says the honesty in “Sorry Mom” — a song that finds the ways her namesake fell short of family expectations, including drinking, dropping out of college and sometimes putting career over family — he did it first. The composition that Ballerina felt could really follow Rolling Up the Welcome Mat.
“'Sorry Mom' had the same sharpness, but it wasn't shock-and-awe sharpness. It was sharpness for the sake of honesty,” he notes.
When Ballerini's mother heard the song, “The first thing she said [was] “You have nothing to be sorry for,” and it was a very beautiful moment,” Ballerini recalled. “Honestly, I think part of that song is about the generational pattern that maybe her mom was sweeping things under the rug, and maybe if I didn't bring up some things, we probably would never talk about them. But it's about breaking that cycle and going from mother and daughter to more woman to woman.”
Ballerini had already written and recorded “Cowboys Cry Too” to “honor the men in my life who [had] openness and vulnerability,” when she met Noah Kahan during Grammy week in Los Angeles.
“There was such a songwriting synergy in our conversation that I texted him and said, 'I feel like this is a song that really needs a male perspective and would you like to?' she says, adding, “I thought it was interesting to hear a woman's perspective on toxic masculinity, but it really hit home when Noah wrote his verse and just went there in the lyrics. He's an incredible songwriter. He wrote his verse on the road and we met again in Nashville and in the studio and he sang it to me. I was like, “This is exactly what this song needed.” What a gift.”
“Cowboys Cry Too” earned Ballerini and Kahan a CMA Award nomination for Music Event of the Year, while Ballerini is up for Female Vocalist of the Year ahead of the Nov. 20 ceremony. But even with lyrics that are deep, there's a playful mood throughout the album, even on songs like “First Rodeo,” which focuses on the first blush of new romance.
“I think I'm finally honoring everyone's game. This is supposed to be fun,” he says. “Making records is fun and if you think too much or too much in your head about where it's supposed to fit and who's supposed to like it, then you lose the heart of it. I think I've really leaned into the playing element of this record.”
At the same time, Ballerina is expanding her exposure as a versatile entertainer, thanks to her coaching roles in The Voice when season 27 starts in 2025, and a small part for the new series Dr. Odyssey.
“I read it [Dr. Odyssey] the script and the character felt like something I could do, but also would definitely push me. It was a two week shoot and I was in it [Los Angeles] act The Voice anyway, that's how it worked. It was like, one day I was playing a character called Lisa [on Dr. Odyssey] and the next day, I coached Kelsea [on The Voice].”
Her most ambitious film role would be building on her previous work, portraying young musician AnnieLee Keyes in the Dolly Parton and James Patterson audio book Run, Rose, Run (“If this ever gets made into a movie, [that role] it would be my dream,” says Ballerini).
“I think I'm just in the part of life where I run towards things that scare me,” she says. “I want to see what else could fulfill me creatively, knowing that music will always be the foundation and will always be my priority. But if I have time in this space, as I was saying earlier with the arenas, why not now? I'm just having so much fun playing and trying new things.”
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