Lady Antebellum’s Own the Night has debuted at the top of the Billboard Top 200 with more than 347,000 copies sold, which is the biggest first week debut by a country artist this year. Own the Night also follows Lady A’s multi-platinum second album, Need You Now, which topped the Billboard 200 in February 2010. Lady A’s Dave Haywood, the album is a “call- to-action to tell people to get out there. ‘Let’s own this experience, own this evening, own what you’re going through, whatever it is in your life, own it and enjoy it,’ because life’s too short not to enjoy them.”

• The trio is currently in Canada promoting Own the Night before returning to the States to make their debut appearance on Saturday Night Live on October 1st.
• Next month, Lady A will travel to Europe for more appearances and fan events in the UK, France and Germany all before kicking off the first leg of their headlining Own the Night 2011 Tour beginning November 11th in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 AUDIO: Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood describes Own The Night as a call-to-action.

Lady A (Own the Night) 092111 OC: …enjoy them. :50

“I mean, we wanted to have a call-to-action, so to speak. I think for us, this on a lot of different levels [that] Own the Night applies to us. One being that we want to own these experiences that we’re going through right now, and all the exciting things that we get the opportunity to do, and we want to enjoy them. We don’t want these just to pass on by and look back and wonder what happen. We want to live in each and every single moment and enjoy these. And as well, when fans come out to see us, which we hope that they do this fall, we want people to have that experience and hopefully have something that they can look back on, as well, that they enjoy. So, we want, it’s that call- to-action to tell people to get out there. ‘Let’s own this experience, own this evening, own what you’re going through, whatever it is in your life, own it and enjoy it,’ because life’s too short not to enjoy them.”

AUDIO: Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley explains why “We Owned the Night” is a perfect follow-up to their recent No. 1 single, “Just a Kiss.”

Lady A (We Owned the Night-different message) OC: …the live show. :44

“I think that’s one of the main reasons is the live feel to it, and it just had kind of an urgency to it and an excitement to it that we wanted to kind of represent this record. And ‘Just A Kiss’ is very Lady A, [while] ‘We Owned The Night’ is a little bit kind of more of a departure for us in a way, just the sound of it is very mandolin-heavy and it’s just got a lot of different organic elements, which is really exciting for us to kind of go down that road. But I think more than anything, the message of it, just owning the night, we thought it would just be a great, great thing to kind of just, you know…” HS: “Set the tone.” CK: “Set the tone for the record and the tour, and I’m loving the response so far. The fans are really gravitating towards it, and I think live, it’s just going to be a great cornerstone of the live show.”