Carrie Underwood joins Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen to chat about everything from her new song “Ghost Story,” to her Las Vegas residency, to challenges she’s overcome in the studio. They also discuss Carrie’s commitment to delivering a top notch live show, and she even shares details on what fans can expect from her next project. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full on-demand here.
Carrie Underwood on “Ghost Story”
I loved obviously the lyrics, but there was also just something super cool about the music. And I feel like the chord changes and just kind of the musicality of it. It just didn’t sound like anything else that’s on the radio right now. And I feel like it was a great first choice first single, because I feel like it’s enough of hopefully what people like about me. There’s some drama. It’s a cinematic song. It’s a great story song. It’s kind of this little revenge kind of song and there’s just something kind of epic about it. So I just felt like it was a great song and then getting in the studio and singing it myself, it was just like, ah, this just feels good.
Carrie Underwood on Getting Into Character for Songs
I feel like everything that I’ve done even at the most out of character is still a small part of me. You know what I mean? And it’s fun to be able to kind of tap into that. And to some extent, I guess you do kind of have to be a bit of an actress to like go there, but that’s what’s so fun about it. And I feel like as a women, we have a lot, we have a lot going on. A lot of different sides and it’s fun to be able to kind of explore that and do things that people might not see you doing often and kind of get to be a little more sassy or angry or whatever it is. Yeah, I feel like all of that’s in there somewhere.
Carrie Underwood on Spending Her Birthday in a Haunted Castle in Scotland
This was a few years ago, I had a birthday and we were in Scotland and I was like, okay, if I’m going to spend my birthday in Scotland, I want to stay at a haunted castle. And they found one for me in Inverlochy. And we like drove a bit out of our way to stay there, but it was so cool because the entire castle was like the perfect size for like me and my band and my crew. Like, we all got to stay there. We all had this giant night dinner at like this long table. And they bought me like a ghost hunting kit. And then we had dinner and like a scotch tasting and stuff. And then we went ghost hunting and I had like a Geiger counter. And I was like, trying to find… I didn’t find any. It zipped at me like a couple times, but we didn’t see any ghosts. And I was like taking pictures, thinking I’m going to like look back at these pictures. I’m going to see ghosts. Yeah. But it was fun running around in the dark, looking for ghosts on my birthday.
Carrie Underwood on What Fans Can Expect From Her Next Project
I feel like overall, just this next project is… It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. We covered a lot of ground making it and just kind of went into the whole project of let’s just have fun and make music we love and see what happened. And I got to write a lot. I got to co-produce again with David Garcia, which is just so much fun getting able to be there from the ground up and really make more musical decision. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun and I feel like people are going to hear everything and just going to get some warm fuzzies and just, I don’t know, hopefully it’ll just make people happy to listen to. It’s a very like sing into your hairbrush, in your house, in your room kind of album, which I think it’s going to translate well. I think people are going to like it.
Carrie Underwood on Challenging Herself Vocally
I love a challenge. I want a challenge. I want to tackle things that are too hard for me so that I learn how to do them and they’re not hard anymore. So I feel like I’ve set myself up and I now realize how important it is to really actively take care of myself so that I can do everything I promised. I’m not the kind of person that’ll go into the studio and while I’m standing there, I can sing everything. And then the second I get on a stage and start walking around, I’m done. I make it a point to be able to deliver what I promised on the album. So that’s a point of pride with me. I feel like I’m willing to do whatever it takes to bring it.
Carrie Underwood on a Challenging Moment In The Studio When Recording ‘Cry Pretty’
There was one time I was in the studio on the ‘Cry Pretty’ album where I was with [my co-producer] David [Garcia] and I was going for this note and I kept just singing under it because it was just at the tipity tipity top of my range. And he said, “You only have to do it once.” And I said, “No, I don’t. I have to do it every night.” So we’re going to have to figure something else out because I’m going to go for it. And if I miss it, I miss it. And I can’t do that out on stage every night. Just sing that bad note every night. So I figured something out equally as cool, but actually in my range.
Carrie Underwood on Being Competitive with Husband Mike Fisher
I think with me and Mike, it’s a competitive spirit and I feel like there are surprisingly a lot about him and his being a former pro-athlete and me and what I do that it’s like… There’s a lot that are kind of parallel. And I feel like we understand each other. He knows I’m competitive and he is very much like… We kind of can’t play like board games. I got in trouble once playing board games with some friends because I got a little too serious about it. So there’s certain things that he understands. And yeah, I definitely… I’m not an athlete, but I feel like I do have kind of a lot of that mindset, which it’s just that drive to get better and to push yourself. And whatever it is you’re doing, just work really hard at it.
Carrie Underwood on Her Motivator Being Health
My overall motivator is health. I have two children. I want to be around for them as long as possible and not just be alive, I want to live well and I want to be as healthy as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can be. They’re only getting bigger and more active. And I mean, last night I carried my seven year old up the stairs to bed and I’m like, I don’t know much longer I’ll be able to do this, but I’m going to do it as long as I can.
