The Band Perry will perform on March 13.
Jay Cridlin
Tampa Bay Times
As far back as last fall, it was clear The Band Perry was cooking up something different for their third studio album, “Heart + Beat.”
For starters, there was anthemic lead single Live Forever, which the band pushed toward pop radio. And then there were the band’s new, wildly colorful promotional photos.
“When we sit down to write songs, everything’s connected for us, from the visuals to the sounds to even what we say from the stage,” said bassist Reid Perry. “The visual side of it just represents a little bit of happiness and joy that The Band Perry’s feeling. We’re not fighting anyone, we’re not really the underdogs anymore. We’re just actually enjoying who we are.”
And who wouldn’t? Last year Reid, Neil and Kimberly Perry took home their first Grammy for a cover of Glen Campbell’s Gentle On My Mind, and on March 13, they’ll close out the 2016 Florida Strawberry Festival.
Reid said the band has been playing some new songs live, but fans of their more traditional country songs, such as their breakout hit If I Die Young and their chart-topping sophomore album “Pioneer,” might be in for some surprises on “Heart + Beat.”
“For ‘Pioneer,’ we were very much in a kind of underdog, rock and roll, black leather kind of mindset,” he said. “Whenever we went in to write and record ‘Heart + Beat,’ it was all about making us smile whenever we left the studio. We accomplished that, so we want to bring that to visual life. We haven’t gotten rid of all the black leather, but we’ve gotten rid of a lot of it.”
They’ve enlisted the help of producers such as Pharrell Williams and Diplo on songs that will further their mainstream pop crossover.
“Country is a very living and breathing genre,” Reid said. “We’re influenced by a ton of different things. We’re not the same people we were five years ago. I would imagine that if anyone is the same person they were five years ago, they wouldn’t really be happy with themselves.”
This will be the third Strawberry Festival for The Band Perry, and they have plenty of fond memories from past trips to Plant City. It’s where Kimberly met her future husband, Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.P. Arencibia, and as Reid said: “We get pallets of strawberries given to us, which we love.”
And it fits right in with The Band Perry’s strategy of playing any show, anytime .
“We actually love playing live,” Reid said. “Before we wrote songs or did interviews, that’s what we did — that really was our first true love. That’s how we fell in love with music, is actually being up on stage.”
Contact Jay Cridlin at cridlin@tampabay.com.
