Somebody to lean on! Kelsea Ballerini had the full support of her husband, Morgan Evans, while rerecording her self-titled album as an acoustic release during quarantine.
“During this whole process, Morgan and I always kind of said we’re never gonna write together because, I don’t know, we just respect each other so much as songwriters,” the Grammy nominee, 27, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her 2020 iHeartCountry Festival performance on Friday, October 23. “I was worried that I’d get in the room and be like, ‘Oh, it’s weird that I’m writing a love song about you, with you.’ Like I just thought I’d be so in my head about it.”
Ballerini continued, “But we ended up starting to write together the last few months and it’s been so much fun when we’re just itching to play music, we’ll both just pick up a guitar and start writing, so that’s definitely been a good silver lining.”
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The “Other Girl” singer also hinted that the couple could possibly collaborate together again someday. “I’m sure down the road we’ll do more songs together. Right now, we’re both just trying to keep our music out [of it],” she added.
Ballerini married the 35-year-old “Kiss Somebody” crooner in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in December 2017.
The “Legends” songstress recently said that the duo had an “instant connection” upon meeting. “I’ve always loved the idea of relationships and love and all that but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the marriage thing,” she told Access Hollywood in August. “My parents got divorced so I was kind of always really aware of that. As soon as I met him, he was just careful with the way that I love. And I always felt very safe loving him.”
This past March, Ballerini released her third studio album, Kelsea. She later rerecorded a stripped-down version of each track and rereleased it in September, calling the record Ballerini.
The “Peter Pan” singer told Us that her Ballerini album was a “pivot” for her. “It was kind of me finding a way to fall back in love with this record that I worked really hard on for, like, a year and a half,” she explained, noting that she “needed a way to, kind of, find a way to turn an album that I made to tour into an album made for listening in your living room.”
Ballerini will virtually perform songs from both of her 2020 albums during this year’s iHeartCountry Festival. Lady A, Dierks Bentley and Dustin Lynch will also perform during the virtual event.
“It’s so much fun to be able to, kind of, pick and choose which versions fits which setting,” she told Us of her upcoming performance. “With a show like this, we wanted to kind of have the drums and the big live elements that we had on the Kelsea album to kind of build a tour around. But it’s been nice to be able to pick between the different versions for the different performances, for sure.”
The 2020 iHeartCountry Festival is streaming on Friday, October 23, at 8 p.m. ET through LiveXLive and across iHeartMedia platforms.
With reporting by Kayley Stumpe