Kelsea Ballerini Didn’t Want To ‘Sugarcoat Things’ on Her New Album

“Everyone told me, they’re like ‘You have your whole life to write your first record, and the second one is going to be crazy.’ And it’s true,” Ballerini recalled during a sit-down interview with Sounds Like Nashville recently.

Donning a red jumpsuit at the popular Nashville coffeehouse Atmalogy, the Tennessee native spoke excitedly and openly about the journey to her sophomore effort, Unapologetically. The 12-track release is a chronological collection of songs that range from heartache to self-growth to fulfillment.

“I just know that for me as a fan, I always relate to songs that are just more open, whether it’s like experiencing really true happiness, or really, really sad, dark sadness,” she shared while seated on a couch. “I think for me, I didn’t want to sugarcoat things or fluff things and make them kind of half the truth. I just wanted to be honest. And that was really freeing as a songwriter, to be able to get really dark, and get really light, and not sugarcoat either one.”

The process of making her debut album, The First Time, was an entirely different one for the self-proclaimed ‘naïve’ songwriter. While the project lead to three No.1 songs and a GRAMMY-nomination for Ballerini, The First Time was put together after years of writing and collecting songs, whereas Unapologetically came much more quickly.

“The main difference with the first record, I was signed for a year as a songwriter first, and then I wrote most of those songs in that year. And then all of a sudden I had a record deal, and ‘Love Me Like You Mean It’ came out, and it was like, 12 songs, go! I just like grabbed 12 of my favorites and put them together, and that was my first album,” Ballerini recalled. “This one’s been different, because the whole process, from writing the very first song I knew that it had the potential to be on a record, and be a single, and be performed. And I didn’t know that the first time. It’s been a lot more creative, a lot more anxiety-filled. I think I have a lot more pride in this one.”

The creation of The First Time was such a different progression for Ballerini, who went into the second album hoping to create the same lightning that had struck before. It wasn’t until she realized that lightning doesn’t always strike the same place twice that she was able to truly expand on her songwriting skills and say what she needed to say for the new album.

“I had to let myself be 22 and 23. I think for a while I was trying to go back to my 19-year-old self to find that, to write this record. And then I realized that I can’t, and I shouldn’t, or else I’ll make the same record again. I realized I needed to be my 22 and 23-year-old self to make this record as me, now. And that was a lesson that I had to get to, but got it,” she conceded.

Allowing herself, and her songwriting, to grow and evolve eventually led Ballerini to 12 tracks that sum up the past few years of her life.

Unapologetically is available in stores and online now.