Kelsey Hart Interview - Life With You, Debut Album, Songs

Country singer/songwriter Kelsey Hart dreamed of standing on stage since he was a little kid singing in church and talent shows in his hometown of Greenville, Kentucky. Now he’s a rising star for Curb Records with 190 million global career streams. His first song, “Life With You” hit big time, becoming a Top 25 debut single and being certified gold.

Hart has a strong, soulful voice, and “Life With You” provides a good showcase for his singing and songwriting ability. When you watch the video of “Life With You” (which now has 8 million views on YouTube) it becomes clear that Hart has a sincere, thoughtful way of expressing his feelings in a song.

“Life With You” debuted in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Country Digital Songs chart, with millions of TikTok views and global streams. In addition, Hart and labelmate Harper Grace are having success with their duet song, “Freedom,” with its Top 40 placement on the Hot AC Chart. And in May 2024, Hart released his debut album, Life With You, on Curb Records.

Hart’s recent single, “Fireworks,” was a most added song on country radio, while his new single “Something That You Miss” is starting to percolate. And as a songwriter, he has penned songs for Trace Adkins, Dylan Scott, and Jake Owen. Hart was recently on the road with country band Restless Road’s tour.

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Kelsey Hart. He discusses his breakthrough hit “Life With You,” his teaming with Harper Grace, and his debut album.

BC: What’s the story behind your first radio single, “Life With You,” that you wrote (along with Kyle Schlienger & Scott Stepakoff) for your wife?

Kelsey Hart: “Life With You” was my wife and I’s first dance song. I actually wrote that song probably a year-and-a-half before we even got engaged. She told me then that she loved the song and would like to use it eventually for our first dance. We were doing long distance and were ready to be doing life together in the same spot, and that’s where the idea came from. We used it at our wedding, and the song came out soon after that, and it ended up being my first radio single.

BC: You didn’t jump the gun writing that song for her too early in the relationship?

Hart: Oh, no. We had been dating for a year-and a-half, so it was still pretty fresh, but not fresh enough, that it was like creepy (laughs).

Here’s the video of Kelsey Hart’s hit, “Life With You.”

BC: “Life With You” is the title track from your first album. Can you talk about working on your debut album?

Hart: I had been in town for so long, and when you’re putting your first record together, you have a big pile of songs you’ve been working on for a long time. It was tough to narrow down to what we felt like we wanted to be on there, but at the end of the day, I was really excited with how it came together. The song “Life With You” opened up so many doors for that whole record to be heard. That was a good time. I’m excited to start on the next record.

BC: How’s that going?

Hart: It’s going good man! We’ve started recording songs for it already. It’ll probably be the middle of next year before we’ve got it all dialed in and ready to go. We’ll have other songs coming out between now and then, though.

BC: Your latest song is “Something That You Miss” (written with Kyle Schlienger, Joe Clemmons & Blake Bollinger). How did that come about?

Hart: It was a song that we were writing last year, on a writing retreat. I feel like, out of that weekend, the song just stood out to me. It was a strong song. My buddy had the idea for it, and it was his story and something that we had told through the song.

BC: One blast from the past is “Fireworks” that you recorded and it was written by Barrett Baber, Taylor Goyette & Jordan James. Why were you interested in recording that song?

Hart: I thought it was a really cool idea on going down a dead-end road. You know it’s a dead-end road, but you keep going anyway. I think maybe we’ve all experienced that to a degree in some aspects of life. I just thought it was a special song.

BC: You are also featured on Harper Grace’s song, “Freedom.” How did that come about?

Here’s the video of Kelsey Hart’s single, “Fiireworks.”

Hart: I think Harper’s a great singer. I’ve always loved her voice. We’re on the same label at Curb, so they reached out and asked if I would do a feature on it, and I thought it was a great song. I think it went to the hot AC radio, and then, I’ve heard recently that it’s charting on Media Base. It’s a cool song.

BC: How did you begin in songwriting?

Hart: As a kid, I sang a lot at church and talent shows and different things on my own. Then right out of high school, we started a hometown band, with me and a few of my buddies just playing out in the garage. Wherever people would listen to us, we’d go play. Once that came to a close, that’s when I came to Nashville and started writing and recording here. It’s coming up on 10 years now that I’ve been here.

BC: How’s the touring going?

Hart: It’s good man. We’ve been doing a lot of festival stuff this summer and hopefully going to keep things rolling a little bit this fall.

Bill Conger has been a freelance music journalist for more than 30 years, writing feature segments for shows on the former TNN and Country Music Television. He has written for various publications including Bluegrass Unlimited, Bluegrass Today, Fiddler, American Songwriter, CMT.com, GACTV.com. He can be reached at [email protected].