Music / Nightlife

The three siblings of The Band Perry will be joining headliner Brad Paisley at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday — the day before the Perrys head to the Grammy Awards, where they're nominated for Best New Artist.

"We hope you guys are going to be a good-luck charm," said lead singer Kimberly Perry in a telephone interview, minutes after emerging from the Nashville studio where the Perrys are working on their third album.

During the Grammys, they will also be performing with Blake Shelton and country legend Glen Campbell.

"We're so excited," said Reid Perry, of playing with Campbell. "I remember our dad introducing his music to us years ago, so being able to honor him is a big deal."

Of course, for The Band Perry and the tour's other opening act, last year's "American Idol" winner Scotty McCreery, "years ago" can't possibly be that many. One of this tour's hallmarks is its youthfulness: Kimberly, Neil and Reid Perry are 28, 23 and 21, respectively, and McCreery is 17 and working on his last year of high school. Even Paisley, who has sold more than 12 million albums, hasn't quite hit 40.

Like Paisley, the two opening acts blend elements of rock and pop with more traditional country elements, creating the modern country sound that is proving as popular in the Northwest as it is everywhere else.

They all have their own personalities. Paisley is wry and teasing and a crowd favorite (he was country's top-grossing solo headliner in 2010). Although his music has long featured elements of rock 'n' roll, his latest album is called "This Is Country Music" and pays tribute to the likes of George Jones, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash.

Like Paisley, the Perrys are part rocker. While their songs are lyrical, heartfelt ballads, their shaggy hair and black-leather-jacket style often looks more like The Cure than the Grand Old Opry.

"We wear a lot of cowboy boots, but we love a little bit of English style," Kimberly Perry said, calling their look "a visual extension of ourselves. It's just always what we've kind of been."

The siblings honed their harmonies on road trips, when they sang to their mother as she drove through the night, Reid Perry said. The haunting "If I Die Young" (inspired partly by Gothic poetry) hit No. 1 on the country-music charts in 2010. Last year, the band won the Academy of Country Music Award for Top New Vocal Duo or Group. They're nominated for Vocal Group of the Year this time.

Season 10 "American Idol" winner McCreery is more straight-up country, his attitude honed by growing up in small-town North Carolina.

Singing for thousands of people at a time on top of homework and baseball practice might seem a lot for a high-school senior to handle, but "I try to stay in control of my own life," McCreery said in an interview, his voice as startlingly low in speech as in song.

He does homework on his tour bus, attends a regular high school at least two or three days a week and keeps up with as many extracurricular activities as he can.

"It's a cool tour, with Brad, because it's mostly a weekend thing," he said.

He calls his deep bass-baritone "a blessing that God gave me," and he's put it to good use throughout his teen years: "Growing up, I'd have girls who'd have guys calling, and they'd put me on the phone and have me tell these guys to leave them alone."

Although one of his biggest hits is "The Trouble with Girls," he says he doesn't have time for dating right now — which is probably for the best, since "it's definitely weirder now that a lot of people know me."

Paisley is a known prankster, and his two openers for this tour have already been victims. The Band Perry played a prank themselves, in Denver, in which they did the famed Tim Tebow move on stage while Paisley was singing — not realizing Tebow was in the house, until security guards escorted the Broncos quarterback onto the stage to sing along.

McCreery is ready for it.

"We're trying to put together something, me and the band," he said. "He's already gotten us a couple times."

Christy Karras is a freelance writer based in Seattle.