Kelsea Ballerina brings first headlining tour to Rosemont's Joe's Live
Two months ago, country singer Kelsea Ballerini took the stage in Detroit to open for Rascal Flatts, just as she had been doing all summer. As she explained during a recent video Q&A with the Nashville Songwriters Association, she was at the amphitheater in “onstage artist mode” until she introduced her newest hit, “Peter Pan.”
“This just became my third No. 1 single,” Ballerini told the concert crowd. As soon as the words were out, she actually processed them for the first time - and broke down in tears, unable to continue singing.
Those surreal moments are bound to happen when you start as an aspiring teenage songwriter with Nashville executives rejecting you because, as they say, “There's already a Taylor Swift.” Then before you know it, you're the first female country artist in history to have your first three singles from a debut album go No. 1 on country radio.
Now, the 23-year-old Knoxville, Tennessee, native is marking another milestone that's increasingly rare for young women in country music: her first headlining tour. She'll play the Chicago Theatre Wednesday, Nov. 9, as part of the “CBS Radio's Stars and Strings Tour” with Jason Aldean and others, before embarking on her own tour - which will bring her to Joe's Live in Rosemont on Thursday, Nov. 17.
After two summers as the opening act for such groups as Lady Antebellum and Rascal Flatts, she's ready to carry her own show.
“Opening up for artists like that ... I just assume no one knows me, and I make my goal of my 30-minute opening slot to introduce myself,” Ballerini said by phone from a recording studio in Nashville. “For a headlining tour, it's the first time I get to assume they know some of the songs and they're familiar with them, enough to really build off that and start creating that world and that atmosphere where people can leave and feel like we're best friends.”
Ballerini often gets Swift comparisons - so much that when she recently posted a snippet of a new song on Snapchat, the internet freaked, thinking it was Swift on vocals. (“People are crazy!” Ballerini laughs of the mix-up, although it wasn't out of the realm of possibility: She and Swift have become good friends.)
But in addition to Ballerini's savvy country-pop songs - she either wrote or co-wrote all 12 tracks on her first album - her Swiftian attitude of making fans feel like real pals helped propel her to breakout star status. She's also gone beyond Nashville, regularly popping up in celebrity magazines and co-hosting ABC's “Greatest Hits” karaoke show with Arsenio Hall.
Ballerini's career has been a relatively quick rise after a long journey. After initially being turned down by labels, Ballerini moved to Nashville for high school and networked all over the city. In late 2013, she landed a record deal with independent label Black River Entertainment and became the fledgling label's flagship artist.
As her first single climbed the charts in early 2015 - the swag-filled “Love Me Like You Mean It,” a warning to a guy playing mind games - the country music world found itself in a gender gap controversy over the lack of women on radio, spurred by a programmer's advice to keep female voices off the air for better ratings. But radio already had latched on to Ballerini. With its catchy pop beat, “Love Me Like You Mean It” fit in with contemporary country's most popular sound.
The hit helped launch her 2015 album, “The First Time,” which was recently certified gold.
“I made it with my friends, and none of us had ever had a song on the radio before,” Ballerini said. “We had such creative and naive freedom with making this album and just to see the way that it's been received and embraced and loved, it's a huge deal.”
In June of last year, Ballerini became the first female singer in nearly a decade to score a No. 1 song on country radio with her debut single. Her second, the flirty “Dibs,” also hit the top of the charts. Trying to diversify, the label released the ballad “Peter Pan,” about an emotionally unavailable dude who just won't grow up.
As she embarks on her tour, Ballerini is hard at work on her second album. She'll throw a couple of new tunes on the set list. (No word on if one of them is “Roses,” the track that briefly sent social media into a frenzy when people thought it was Swift.) When Ballerini cleared up the rumors on Instagram, she wrote, “It's not a collaboration with anyone, and I'm not making a pop record.”
Was she worried people would think she was pulling a Swift and leaving Nashville?
“I think my first record definitely had pop influence, and this one will, too. As you hear in the clip of 'Roses,' I'm pushing it as far as I possibly can just to see if I like it,” Ballerini said. “But, I mean, part of me being a responsible songwriter is testing that and seeing what feels right and not boxing myself in or anything.”
However, she quickly added, “It won't be any more pop than the first record was.”
Kelsea Ballerini
• 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, as part of the “CBS Radio's Stars and Strings” tour with Jason Aldean, Rascal Flatts and others at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., Chicago,
ticketmaster.com. $49-$149.• 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, at Joe's Live, 5441 Park Place, Rosemont. Doors open at 7 p.m.
joesliverosemont.com. $28 general admission; balcony $56.