Hillary Scott’s bandmates of Lady A, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, join her for this week’s episode of Country Faith Radio. In the interview, the trio recall writing some early hits, including “I Run To You” and “Hello World,” and discusses how each of their faiths have evolved over the past year. The band also looks back on writing their recent collaboration with Chris Tomlin, “Who You Are To Me.” Additionally, in honour of Charles and Dave joining her, Hillary has each bandmate curate mini-playlists of their favourite country faith songs. Listen to the interview with Lady A in-full anytime on-demand here.
Lady A Discusses Writing “I Run To You” and Its Relevance Today
Charles: I remember [Tom Douglas] just had pretty much a basic sketch. And he did have some verse melodies, if I remember (singing) and very poetic words, but he didn’t really have a chorus melody. I mean, I was just going to say that song is more relevant now, especially after what this whole world has gone through with the pandemic. It’s like this world keeps spinning faster into a new disaster. So I mean, leaning on each other, leaning on your faith, leaning on my band mates during this time. So yeah, that song’s pretty special.
Dave: We went over to Tom’s house in Franklin, and gosh, I just love the way he is such a kind of old soul. And he literally writes by hand in a journal and he had all these lyrics of things you run from, pessimist and hate and prejudice and running to someone. I remember he said he got that idea while he was running a marathon, I think. And so he had all these lines, which began… He had basically a poem written out of things you run from and run to.
Hillary Scott Recalls the Unlikely Place Lady A Found Out “I Run To You” Went No. 1
I’ll never forget, we were on the road with Kenny Chesney and we get a call from our manager and our bus had broken down on the side of the road in, out west, somewhere. We were somewhere between like Boise, Idaho, and Oregon or something. And we found out that [“I Run To You”] went number one. And I just, I remember that one being one that we really championed to be a single and I’m really glad we did. And we were all so young, but I think we knew that there was depth to it and wanted the world to hear it. And it’s awesome that it was the first number one we ever had. I feel like it set the tone of the kind of songs we wanted to continue to release out into the world.
Charles Kelley Reflects on Recording “Hello World”
At the time, I guess I was married, but none of us had kids and now, again, I mean, just the way [“Hello World”] hits. I see my wife, a little boy a little girl, hello world and again, it’s just about how distracted we can get. And sometimes it’s something as simple as looking over and seeing something that just reminds you of your faith and reminds you of just the beauty of the world because I think, right now, more than ever it’s like what we call little God winks. And I think that song is funny because at the time, it felt good to me, but I didn’t really resonate as much with the message as I do now.
Charles Kelley Says the Pandemic Made Him Connect More with His Faith
Through the low, my high was I really did connect a lot more to my faith. Through this, I think reading a lot of different things and you really only learn and grow through the lows and the hard times. And it really is true. I mean, when I’m riding high and everything’s good, I’m really not connected to my feelings much. I’m just kind of on the ride, on the rollercoaster ride. And then when you got to sit back and question and do those things, I really think that’s when you start having those conversations with God. And you’re like, “Okay, help me through this. What is this?” And it’s kind of sad that that’s what it is, but it really is true. I mean, I find myself when I really need help that I’m like, “Man, when I don’t need help, I’m just really not that connected to my faith as much.” So that was a high for sure.
Dave Haywood on What He’s Learned About His Faith in the Past Year
I think for me, the sort of theme was just kind of continually like relying and letting go, like you can’t control everything. You know, I wish I was in charge of getting rid of the virus. I wish I could figure all this stuff out, but you just can’t. And so I think that just became sort of smack dab right in front of my face, through the pandemic of like, “All right, I’m definitely not in control of a lot of things, of everything.” So you just kind of get up, have some gratitude and do the best you can every day. So that was pretty the glaring kind of theme for me, it was the forced like “Okay, you’re definitely not in control and you’ve just got to do the best you can and love people as best you can and do what you feel called to do. And stay true to that.”
Charles Kelley Reveals Why He Struggled with His Faith as a Kid
As a kid, I struggled really, really hard with organized religion, and church, and all these. I found it very… Yeah, I don’t know. It was a very disheartening thing, because like, this is a horrible way of looking at it, but as a kid, it was like, I would go to church and then I’d see these kids that were like all really strong faith. Then I’d see them partying and making bad decisions. It made me give this like hypocritical view of that. My wife was like, “That’s human beings.” And it gave me this like weird, flawed view of it. To me, I’ve found that faith for me is just like… He’s in everything, in what we are. I guess that to me is like, I found that I’ve grown stronger in my faith by not putting Him in this box of like, “Okay, well, to believe in God, you got to go to church, you got to do this.” I don’t know if that makes any sense… But I’ve grown a lot of like… I found His presence in kind of, I guess, a little bit of a different journey.
Charles Kelley on Writing “Who You Are To Me” with Chris Tomlin
I remember, because I was like, “Man, am I a fraud coming in here?” Because I was like, “I don’t know all the Bible verses, all these things.” You all grew up so much in that world. And sometimes I feel like a little bit of a fraud in that situation. And I was like, “Well for Him, this is who He is to me.” Like I said, I still struggle with some of the nuances of Christianity and what that is, but I know I have this relationship and I can feel it. And I feel God. And so I’m like, “Well, this is who He is to me.” And then we were off to the races. It was pretty cool to be in that situation and feel like I could kind of kickstart that, even a stronger relationship for me in my journey. Because it really has only been in the past probably two, three years where I really have felt connected to God.
