Kelsea Ballerini says life-changing ‘Welcome Mat’ EP was “the anomaly of my career”

The creation process behind Kelsea Ballerini‘s Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good) may have been unorthodox, but it came together in the best way possible.

“I sound like a broken record because I say it all the time. But Welcome Mat has just been the anomaly of my career because I wrote it so differently than I would any other album,” Kelsea tells the press. “I had just written my, like, proper 13-song — you know, through the label, A&R [artist and repertoire] — record. And then I very quietly was obviously going through a very big life change.”

“I made this record really selfishly, like truly for myself, and didn’t worry about where the songs would fit or if they would work in X, Y and Z,” she shares.

Now, Kelsea embraces her opportunities to sing these deeply personal, life-changing songs live.

“It was just like creative freedom and emotional freedom, and it changed my life. And so anytime I get to play these songs now, the songs that I swore I would never play live, now they’re the songs that I look forward to the most,” says Kelsea.