Kelsea Ballerini is putting the finishing touches on a new album that she can’t wait to share with the singer-songwriter will release her next set of tunes, the follow-up to her career-changing and very honest Rolling Up The Welcome Mat EP.
“I was really, really nervous on how to follow up Welcome Mat, just because it changed my life and my career so much,” Balleirni admits to People. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how to … where do I go from here?’ That was about such a specific experience that I’m no longer in, and it took me a couple months to figure out what that looks like.”
Ballerini had already built a successful career with hit singles like “Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Peter Pan,” “Legends” and more. But with the songs on Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, all written by Ballerini as a way to process her divorce from Morgan Evans after five years of marriage, the Tennessee native learned that she is able to be brutally honest and vulnerable in her music, and that her fans will gladly come along for the journey.
“I took the truth-telling and the integrity of my songwriting and I just moved it into this chapter of life,” Ballerini explains “It’s being 30 and being in a relationship and being a friend and being a daughter, and feeling like an adult but also still feeling like a kid — all of those nuances and really writing about it from that same place of honesty. And now I feel like I’m ready to follow it up.”
Ballerini doesn’t give a timeline for her new record, but she does say it will be sooner rather than later.
“Half of it is in mixing and half of it is in finishing vocals and doing overdubs,” she reveals. “We’re really close to being done. And the first single is right around the corner.”
With a busy career that also includes touring and getting ready to appear as a coach on Season 27 of The Voice in 2025, Ballerini is more prepared than she has ever been to release her next project.
“We’ve shot everything. A million things!” Ballerini boasts. “This feels like the most ahead of it I’ve gotten to be where it’s like, OK, I’ve had all this time to work on the record and now that it’s taken shape, be able to bring it to life visually and have the time to really plan a proper show. It feels really nice to be able to have that all laid out and not rush into it so much.”
Ballerini previously hinted that her new album would follow the unexpected trajectory laid out for her with Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, a record she never dreamed would be so commercially successful.
“I want to make a record about what it feels to be 30… what it feels like to be falling in love and feeling a new level of safety,” Ballerini recently told Flaunt. “Having the space in my life to experience all of it first had to happen for it now to reflect in the music.”
Ballerini will be joined on The Voice by Adam Levine, who was part of the show for the first 16 seasons, plus John Legend and Michael Bublé. A premiere date has yet to be announced. Find all of Ballerini’s music and upcoming shows at KelseaBallerini.com.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Country Music Association