The country star chatted with PEOPLE about her upcoming album, her new gig and her Original Donut Shop coffee collab
CMA Fest had Kelsea Ballerini putting a little extra pep in her step — and her cup.
Ahead of her stadium set last Friday night, the country star caught up with PEOPLE at Harriet’s Nashville, where Ballerini had teamed up with Original Donut Shop to launch her own limited-edition coffee blend.
“Other than my wake-up cup of black coffee, my go-to is always coffee, a little oatmilk and vanilla,” she said of developing the Ballerini Blend, a medium roast coffee that quickly sold out on Keurig.com. (Fans can still enter to win a prize pack that includes the pods on Instagram here.) “I wanted to combine the two. Why can’t that happen in the morning? It’s a happy cup.”
Ballerini, 30, certainly appreciated the caffeine boost on June 7, as she returned to the CMA Fest stage after missing the festival — aside from a brief Spotify House appearance — in 2023 due to her HEARTFIRST tour.
“I haven’t played anything from Welcome Mat yet,” she replied when asked what was on the night’s setlist, referring to her February 2023 Grammy-nominated surprise EP. “I’m doing ‘Blindsided’ and ‘Penthouse,’ and I’m really excited to see how many people are ready to scream ‘Yeah, Sure, OK’ — or how many people are really confused by it.”
(Thankfully, she had nothing to worry about — the crowd knew that ad-lib, as well as many more.)
With CMA Fest in the rearview, Ballerini is looking towards a new project — her next album, which she teased is almost done but will require a bit more studio time this week. “Half of it is in mixing and half of it is in finishing vocals and doing overdubs,” she explained. “We’re really close to being done. And the first single is right around the corner.”
Describing a packed summer schedule already looming, Ballerini said she’s tried to stay ahead of the curve with this release.
“We’ve shot everything. A million things! This feels like the most ahead of it I’ve gotten to be where it’s like, OK, I’ve had all this time to work on the record and now that it’s taken shape, be able to bring it to life visually and have the time to really plan a proper show. It feels really nice to be able to have that all laid out and not rush into it so much.”
Ballerini has also put a lot of thought into the album itself — how she wants this new offering to feel, look and sound. “I was really, really nervous on how to follow up Welcome Mat, just because it changed my life and my career so much,” she told PEOPLE. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how to … where do I go from here?’ That was about such a specific experience that I’m no longer in, and it took me a couple months to figure out what that looks like.”
In the end, “I took the truth-telling and the integrity of my songwriting and I just moved it into this chapter of life,” she said. “It’s being 30 and being in a relationship and being a friend and being a daughter, and feeling like an adult but also still feeling like a kid — all of those nuances and really writing about it from that same place of honesty. And now I feel like I’m ready to follow it up.”
First though, the musician is taking a turn on the red seat. Ballerini will be the newest coach on Spring 2025’s The Voice, joining John Legend and Michael Bublé, along with Adam Levine in his comeback season. She starts filming in Los Angeles next month.
“I’m so excited. I’m excited because it’s just such a new adventure,” she said. “I’ve gotten to be on set in different capacities over the years, but to really assume that role as a coach — it’s really going to stretch me and it’s going to be a new opportunity.”
Now 10 years into her own career, Ballerini called the show’s timing in her life “perfect.”
“I’ve learned so much, but I’m still actively learning and I still have so many goals and stages that I want to get to. It’s a really interesting place to be in — to be able to be a coach and be like, ‘Hey, I’m still learning alongside you, so I can pour into you what I know. But I am still figuring it out too.’ I really feel like I want to just be the sister moreso than the coach.”
When asked who she considers her toughest Voice competitor to be, Ballerini answered with no hesitation.
“I feel very strongly I’m going to have to really fight Adam Levine,” she joked. “I know it’s a big deal that he’s coming back but yeah — I feel like we’re going to be frenemies. Just kidding. However, I’ve gotten some pep talks from Blake about how to take him down!”
