Kelsea Ballerini aims for memorable 'First Time' tour with bells, whistles

It’s way too early in the morning to pretend to be bubbly and upbeat and fascinated by what other people say — so it could only be that Kelsea Ballerini isn’t pretending at all. She’s just that way, especially when in the company of a few close friends, small-talking and texting inside Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum hours before it opens.

Of course, not every 23-year-old can get that kind of access into this kind of place. But Ballerini is one of country music’s brightest young stars. Her first three singles — Love Me Like You Mean It, Dibs and Peter Pan — all peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay and Hot Country Songs charts. She co-hosted ABC’s Greatest Hits with Arsenio Hall during the show’s six-week run last summer. The Country Music Association has included her among its 2016 nominees for New Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. The outfit she wore on last year’s CMA Awards broadcast — Nicole Miller romper and floor-length skirt, Lionette earrings, lace-up boots by Lust For Life — is displayed under glass at the Hall of Fame, which explains her VIP admission to see the exhibit for the first time.

As Ballerini sees it, her successes have been a team effort. “I wrote the songs on The First Time with my friends,” she says. “My friends (Forest Glen Whitehead and Jason Massey) co-produced it. To take it from the living room where we were struggling to figure out what we were doing in Nashville to make history with three No. 1 singles, I take a lot of pride in that. But what’s really cool is that I get to share that with the people with me. We take pride in it together.”

From childhood, Ballerini loved country music, though her feelings had less to do with what she heard than the world it orchestrated. “I love all music,” she insists. “I think you can hear that on my album. But I grew up on a farm in East Tennessee. Every Sunday, we’d go to church. Afterwards, my family would get together and we’d cook. So to me, it wasn’t so much the genre as the lifestyle I loved.”

She loved spectacle, too. “Shania Twain would be my biggest influence,” Ballerini says. “She’s a true songwriter and a true vocalist. But she’s also a performer. She has the hat, she has the coats and she does the dances. I’ve always been drawn to that, the bells and whistles, especially when you have true talent to back it up.”

Whistles, bells and glitter in general are central to Ballerini’s plans for her upcoming The First Time tour, which launches Nov. 10 in Washington. On Nov. 11, she brings the show home to Knoxville, Tenn. “I learned so much from touring with Rascal Flatts earlier this year,” she says. “It was the best thing ever to go onstage for 40 minutes and then go to the sound booth and watch my favorite acts play for 90 minutes. They opened my eyes to what a show could be.”

Not surprisingly, Ballerini hopes to offer more of the same in years to come. “My goal is to make records, write songs for myself and for other people and do the kind of big tours I grew up going to see. I really want to do that.”

And, now and then, play some smaller venues too, to keep that side of her performance chops sharp?

“Yeah,” Ballerini agrees. “But, I want to get the big ones first!”