Country singer Chris Young came up the modern way: He won Season Four of the now-defunct TV singing competition “Nashville Star,” and, after a halting start, has gone on to have 10 No. 1 hits in his own right, including the title track from his latest album, “Losing Sleep.”
Kelsea Ballerini got a record deal when she was a teenager, and the hits (“Peter Pan,” “Yeah Boy”) came right away. In a genre starved for female artists, she is one of the most reliable female hit-makers since Carrie Underwood.
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Both artists play in town this weekend (Young headlines RiverEdge Park in Aurora on Friday, and Ballerini opens for Keith Urban at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre on Saturday), and both are riding out a good year: Ballerini released her sophomore effort, “Unapologetically,” in November, and married fellow country singer Morgan Evans in December, and Young is headlining his first arena tour.
In separate phone interviews, Ballerini and Young talked about their early days, their envelope-pushing forays into country-pop, and the pleasures and weirdness of fame. The following are excerpts from those conversations:
On whether they get still nervous doing live TV
Kelsea Ballerini: I do. There’s something different about TV, it’s more pressure than a live concert. It lives on forever. It’s also a new audience. Tonight we’re doing “Seth Meyers.” A lot of people probably aren’t familiar with me, so it’s an introduction.
Chris Young: I’m like, what’s the worst thing I can do? I’ve been singing on a major label almost 13 years, everyone knows I can sing. At this point, if I mess up my own song, they might be more impressed than if I do it right. … (“Nashville Star”) put me in a position where I wasn’t afraid to go out and be on anything that was TV-based for a long time.
On their early days
Young: My first album, I didn’t have any radio hits at all. Both the singles off the first record — I don’t want to say tanked, but they did not do very well. … The first single off the second record (underperformed). We put out the second single, and it ended up being my first No. 1, but we (first) got an email saying, “Hey, if this song goes negative again next week, it’ll wind up falling off the charts.” I looked at one of my reps, and I go, “If this doesn’t work, I’m probably done, aren’t I?” And he goes, “Probably.” I’d made the record I wanted to make, and it was either going to work or it wasn’t. Everything ended up working out.
Ballerini: I was 19 when I wrote my first record. It was literally the story of what I was going through in my young 20s. I realize that I am who I am now because of the experiences that made me write those songs, so I still have a big love for my first record, and all those songs. It brings me back to where everything started. I’ll always sing those songs with a lot of appreciation.
On their cautious embrace of pop music
Ballerini: My first single was as pop-country as it gets, “Love Me Like You Mean It,” and it worked, and people embraced it. For me as a songwriter, I owe it to my craft to never produce a song a certain way that doesn’t fit the song. I’m really open about loving pop and being rooted in country. Luckily, country music has really embraced that. I always see myself staying in that lane.
Young: I would say “Losing Sleep” is probably the most pop-leaning (song I’ve ever done), but that’s only from a production standpoint. My vocal is always going to be super country, and that’s probably why I could get away with pushing the envelope a little on that song. There’s also stuff on that record that leans more on the traditional side. I’m not doing it intentionally, it’s just a song that I wrote.
Ballerini: As long as the lyric is telling a story, and as long as the lyric is strong, I don’t care if there’s a banjo or a beat drop. It doesn’t matter to me.
On what they’ve learned from the superstars they’ve opened for
Young: When I was touring with Brad Paisley, he was talking about a part of one of his songs where he got the crowd to do something. I was saying, “I wouldn’t have ever thought to do that,” and he goes, “That’s what they were already starting to do anyways. I just keyed in on it.” He goes, “You can never make a crowd do something they don’t want to do, but if they want to do something, and you give them the opportunity, that is such a huge key to making a crowd moment.”
Ballerini: Keith’s never comfortable. Every single day he’s on stage practicing for an hour or two before the doors open. He’ll bring his family on the road, and if they’re not on the road, he flies to them. … Finding that (work-life) balance is something that changes as your life changes. Me and Morgan have a two-week rule: We don’t go longer than two weeks without seeing each other.
On life near the top of the heap
Young: There’s been stuff on this tour that’s bigger than any rooms I’ve done before. We made a conscious decision, “All right, we’re going to go into some really big arenas, and we’re either gonna half-ass them and they are what they are, or everything goes just right and we sell a whole bunch of tickets.” There’s been several shows that have been over 10,000 tickets sold, and that’s just a whole different level than I’ve done in the past.
Ballerini: I feel like it’s all so new to me. I’m open to all of it. I still get excited when people come up to me and say hi. That will never be annoying to me, I don’t think.
Allison Stewart is a freelance writer.
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When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Ballerini); 7 p.m. Friday (Young)
Where: Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre 19100 S. Ridgeland Ave., Tinley Park (Ballerini); RiverEdge Park, 360 N. Broadway Ave., Aurora (Young)
Tickets: $39.25-$107.25; 800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com (Ballerini); $40-$200; 630-896-6666 or events.riveredgeaurora.com (Young)