At one point in his life, Dave Haywood was working in Buckhead at the Atlanta Financial Center.
Those were the “pre-beard and sleeping until noon” days, as the singer and multi-instrumentalist from Lady Antebellum puts it.
Now, along with his artfully sculpted scruff and a schedule a banker might envy, Augusta native Haywood, along with bandmates Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, also is enjoying the perks that accompany being in one of country music’s biggest bands.
Like singing the national anthem at a World Series game.
Or the multiple tour buses that shuttle them around the country on their first-ever headlining tour, a nearly sold-out two-month stretch that parks at the Fox Theatre Nov. 12.
And the show itself, which features elaborate set designs and a slew of personnel to keep the wheels grinding every night.
“We’ve been dreaming of this moment our whole career,” Haywood said recently from a tour stop in Minneapolis. “After three or four years of opening for people and being crammed on one bus … we’d been watching Kenny Chesney or Tim McGraw perform every night, so to finally get to do this on a smaller scale and have our first shot, it’s exciting.”
The tour with McGraw was the eighth largest-grossing of the first half of 2010, earning $28.2 million and moving more than 580,000 tickets over 48 shows, according to concert trade magazine Pollstar.
Such a high-profile opening gig, coupled with a multi-format radio smash -- the profoundly relatable power ballad “Need You Now,” title track of the band's triple-platinum album -- equated to a breakout year for Lady Antebellum. And the industry has been quick to anoint the trio.
Along with enviable attention from the Country Music Awards, the band is up for five American Music Awards later this month -- signifying its crossover appeal -- as well as seven nominations in the American Country Awards on Dec. 6.
It’s the kind of megastar rush that has led to destruction among many acts. But Haywood -- like Kelley, a University of Georgia graduate -- accepts success quietly.
He talks of getting back to Athens for the UGA-Georgia Tech game, while noting the “nauseating start” to the Bulldogs’ season, and laments the fairly quick exit of the Atlanta Braves from baseball’s postseason.
And life on the road with Lady A, while never devoid of fun, is also prime time to work.
Haywood said the band, based in Nashville, constantly pecks away at material before and after shows and has about 30 new songs written. The plan is to return to the studio in early 2011.
“We like to write on the bus, and sometimes if we have a couple of hours in the afternoon, we’ll set up a room backstage,” he said. “It’s kind of one big constant process. We’re always working on songs, even sitting on airplanes and buses.”
It’s been almost a year since “Need You Now” bowed, but the band is appeasing fans’ desire for new material with “A Merry Little Christmas,” a Target-exclusive six-song collection of holiday classics and the Lady A-penned “On This Winter’s Night.”
While it isn’t definite the band will pull out a frosty tune in concert, fans can expect to hear a few covers, Haywood said, chosen “to explain why we’re into music.”
Songs by Bruce Springsteen and the Police often make appearances, as does Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
“We want to tell a story with this show, tell people the journey about how we met,” Haywood said.
And, as time progresses, how they became superstars.
Concert preview
Lady Antebellum with David Nail. 8 p.m. Nov. 12. $25-$45. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com .
By the numbers
Members: Three
Members with Georgia roots: Two
No. 1 singles: Four
Studio albums: Two
Grammys: One
Times Hillary Scott was rejected as a contestant on “American Idol”: Two
Lady Antebellum appearances on “American Idol”: One (the band performed “Need You Now” in April)
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