This Week’s Host: Kelsea Ballerini

Kelsea Ballerini is this week’s guest host on Backstage Country (June 24-28). The country star joins us in the studio all week to spill the tea on her new music, becoming an official coach on 'The Voice' in 2025, and is sharing the stories behind some of her biggest hits to date.

Ballerini is preparing to release brand new music to the world very soon. It will follow the singer-songwriter's Grammy nominated 2023 EP, Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, featuring "Blindsided," "Penthouse," and "Mountain With A View."

"I really didn't know where to start with this new music because I put out an EP last year called Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, and it just changed my life, musically and career wise in a huge way. But it was so specific to one chapter of my life and I didn't know where to start," Ballerini said.

She continued, "I panicked when I had to make a new record. I was like, okay, well, how do I keep that level of of vulnerability and intention, but bring it into this new chapter of my life? And so I just very slowly and gently started writing."

Fans of Ballerini do not want to miss the show this week. Not only is she in the hosting seat, but she's also taking us down memory lane. We go back to the 30-year-old's first-ever No. 1, "Love Me Like You Mean It," and get some very exciting updates.

Ballerini has yet to announce any touring plans for the remainder of 2024 or for next year, however, you can catch her this summer at the Choctaw Grand Theater in Durant, OK (6/28), Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX (6/29), and at Iowa Speedway in Newton, IA (7/14).

Check back all week for more from Kelsea Ballerini on Backstage Country. For more information, visit kelseaballerini.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok to see more.

As Kelsea Ballerini celebrates her 30th birthday today (9/12), she is in New York City getting ready to make her MTV VMA debut performance. She is expected to treat fans to a world premiere performance from the expanded version of her EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat (For Good).

Ballerini posted the news to Instagram. The announcement was captioned, "Boots: On Welcome Mats: Rolled OUT @kelseaballerini is making her #VMA DEBUT!! Watch her perform LIVE on Tuesday, September 12 on @mtv!"

The 2023 VMAs will air live from New Jersey's Prudential Center tonight (9/12) at 8 PM ET/PT.

Kelsea's career has really exploded in the last couple of years as she was recently nominated for the CMA's 2023 Female Vocalist of the Year among country mainstays like Miranda Lambert, Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde, and Lainey Wilson. She is also nominated for a CMA this year for the coveted Album of the Year honor for her EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat.

This year (2023), she enjoyed three sold-out legs of her "Heartfirst Tour," and a Grammy nomination in February for Best Country Solo Performance for "Heartfirst."

In 2021, Ballerini won two CMA Awards for her duet with Kenny Chesney, "Half My Hometown" for Musical Event and Video of the Year. Also, in 2021, She won a CMT Music Award for Performance of the Year for "The Other Girl" with Halsey.

In August, she gathered with fans and the music industry in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame to celebrate the release of her extended Rolling Up The Welcome Mat EP.

Kelsea said, "Even when we were recording Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, I knew it wasn't the end of the story. We couldn't know what was to come, so [collaborator] Alysa [Vanderheym] and I left the project exactly as it was when it was written and recorded... and because of the open dialogue I have with my fans, it only felt right to finish this story before starting on the next chapter of my life."

She also directed a short film that accompanied the project.

As we join Kelsea in celebration of her birthday today, we thought we would revisit what we believe are her five funniest songs to date.

A fun song found on her debut album, "The First Time." The music video for the song is an ode to the 1990s. Ballerini is shown performing the song in a colorful bodysuit in front of a neon backdrop and a brick wall spray-painted with graffiti, with female backup dancers. When the song came out, Kelsea was touring with Rascal Flatts and headlining her own "The FirstTime Tour."

This is a song on Ballerini's "Subject To Change" album, which seemed to catapult her to a new level of fame. Kelsea wrote the song with Alysa Vanderheym and Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild in July 2021. According to Ballerini, it was the first song that she ever wrote where she did not come up with the title first; instead, the opening line, "Met him at a party / Accidentally brushed his body / On the way to get a drink at the bar" was the first lyric she wrote for the song.

The fun song she named her dog after. The official music video for "Dibs" premiered on October 22, 2015. The video consists of footage Ballerini took while on tour in York, Pennsylvania, Greenville, South Carolina, and St. Leonard, Maryland, performing in front of live crowds, celebrating her 22nd birthday, and spending time with her dog. The chorus sings, Yeah, I'm callin' dibs / On your lips / On your kiss / On your time / Boy, I'm callin' dibs / On your hand / On your heart / All mine."

Kelsea happily joins the country music ranks with a drinking song; a remix of the song featuring Shania Twain was released five months after the original single came out. The music video begins with a vintage black-and-white style with Ballerini dressed in flapper wardrobe reminiscent of the 1920s. Once the first chorus hits, colored scenes are introduced, and she is shown in a house painting a portrait of her dog Dibs in a field with a couple of friends who join her in lounging on a bed and performing a dance routine with the singer and playing chess with herself.

This song is a gem and puts Kelsea in the same company of "fun" murder songs like the Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." Ballerini said when the song came out, it was actually to evoke thoughts of the 1991 film "Thelma & Louise" and The Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." She told us then, "We really wanted to lean into a very '90s country feel, and so we brought in fiddle for the song, which I think to me makes it. That's also why there's a Chicks reference to it, which everyone picks up on, which was absolutely intentional. I didn't want to make it sound like anything else on the record. I wanted it to be its own moment."