Kimberly Perry says The Band Perry's upcoming record is "absolutely the most fun album that we've ever made."

When she and brothers Neil and Reid began working on this, their third release, "fun" seemed the operative word. Here's what Kimberly recalls: If they were about to write a sad song or a tune about a breakup or cheating, they'd stop, realizing they just weren't feeling that way. Kimberly, who got married last year, notes that there was "such love and happiness around" and the songs reflect that.

Consequently, on tour, she says, "We fully expect full dance parties for the next year."

Well, then, the next dance party should break out Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena when The Band Perry performs in concert.

The Perrys were a country-music hit right from their debut album: 2010's "The Band Perry" produced the #1 ballad "If I Die Young." Their follow-up CD, 2013's "Pioneer," saw more singles hit the top of the country charts — "Better Dig Two" and "Done."

They recently released a new, RedOne-produced single "Live Forever," which prompted Lady Gaga to tweet, "I love @RedOne_Official and @TheBandPerry thank you for the ammaazzzing new single!"

The Perrys have been playing together for ages; in fact, they say that Neil was so young when he started that he showed up to band rehearsal in Superman pajamas. Kimberly, now 32, sings lead and gets harmony assists from Reid, 26, who plays bass guitar, and from Neil, 25, who plays mandolin, drums and accordion. (Neil turned 21 in 2011, on the day that The Band Perry was opening for Tim McGraw at Mohegan Sun; Neil has recalled that McGraw gave him a birthday cake and led the concert crowd in singing "Happy Birthday.")

On Friday, Kimberly Perry took time to answer questions from The Day about the group's upcoming album, its history at Mohegan Sun and a recent guest gig with Taylor Swift.

You can almost chart The Band Perry's trajectory based on its appearances at Mohegan Sun. The group played the Wolf Den in 2011. They appeared as McGraw's opening act at the 10,000-seat arena later than year. And now they're headlining the arena:

"Amazing. I remember that Wolf Den experience like it was yesterday. It was as such a fun room for that to be our first time a Mohegan Sun. To be the opening act in the arena is always a special time. Now that we get to come back as headliners, it almost feels like we could be the house band at this point. We're so thrilled to be back. ..."

"(The Wolf Den show) was one of those moments when I remember feeling like the career was definitely growing and blossoming, but it wasn't necessarily like you feel like you had total concrete underneath your feet yet. But I remember walking away from that show specifically feeling like it was really great night, we'd really connected with our crowd..."

The Band Perry is playing a brand new set list for its last 20 shows of this year, including Friday's Mohegan Sun concert. Kimberly's favorite moment is a mashup they're doing of "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics, "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, and "SexyBack" by Justin Timberlake:

"Reid, Neil and I used to take the graveyard shift at a restaurant in Greeneville, Tennessee, where we lived before we had a record deal. Our dad would find any opportunity for us to play. One of those was at this restaurant called Danielle's, and we played from midnight to 2 a.m. ... We used to do a mashup ourselves of Eurythmics'

'Sweet Dreams' and 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley. So (now) we were talking to our bandleader about what songs to put in the set. We said, 'We used to do the mashup of these two ... It was so much fun. And we always wanted to play 'SexyBack' onstage. How can we make all of that happen together?' We spent a good three hours at rehearsal one day figuring out the arrangement and getting all the parts perfect."

For their upcoming album (whose release date has yet to be announced), The Band Perry worked with a wide range of writers and producers, and they didn't contain themselves to the country-music world:

"Reid, Neil and I are such students and fans of all kinds of music. On our iPhone, we have everything from Bach and Beethoven to Michael Jackson to Kanye West and everything in between. We sort of had these people that we really had fallen in love with that we wanted to work with. ... It was a really great experience of finding all these people whose music we love and dance to – and, by the way, they're all country fans, and they really wanted to work with us as well — so it was just this cool matchmaking experience. I think the songs that were born out of that are some of the most special ones we've ever gotten to do."

They collaborated, for instance, with Jon Bellion, who wrote and produced Jason Derulo's "Trumpets" and who was responsible for the hook for Rihanna and Eminem's "Monsters." And they wrote with Pharrell Williams for two days:

"(With Pharrell), I feel like we spent probably 90 percent of the time not working like we should have been but actually just getting sage advice from Pharrell. He's done so much in the world of music ... It was just really cool, in lot of facets, to get some advice from him and learn from him. ... He's like the Yoda in the music business."

The Perrys also worked with producer-songwriter RedOne, who, Kimberly says, is responsible "some of the biggest sing-alongs that have ever existed." Among those, he co-wrote and produced numerous songs for Lady Gaga. After extolling RedOne's musical virtues, Kimberly mentions something else:

"And (he rides) his own scooter at the studio, at Record Plant. The day we were writing, first of all, RedOne's coming in on his scooter with his nametag on it ... I was like, by the way, Justin Bieber has one of those, too. Bieber was actually down the hall on his scooter working on some music. Then, Lady Gaga, at one point this day, she walked into the studio where we were writing 'Live Forever.' She was like, 'Can I hear it?' We were like, 'Are you kidding? We would love for you to hear it! Please tell us your thoughts, give us your feedback.' All that she kept saying was, "I love it. I just want to hear more of Neil's mandolin.' I'm like, 'Turn the mandolin up.' It was one of those heavenly making musical days where all these crazy, amazing characters were around. It was a fun one."

The Band Perry's sound on its second album, "Pioneer," was more pop than on its debut, and the lead single from the upcoming release, "Live Forever," seems to head even more in that direction:

"One thing that we chose to really chase as hard as we could, making this new album ... was authenticity for the three of us and something that was really excellent, that was the best work we had ever done. There's so much pop in country music already — honestly, there's a lot of country in pop music because of all of the lyrics that are happening in that world. For us, it wasn't really about making a record that chased a new genre but rather just chased The Band Perry. I think we really accomplished that more than ever before with this new music. That's the one thing we always heard from our fans ... they really like us to bring them the unexpected. They like us to bring a snapshot of what we're thinking and feeling and hearing in that moment."

Last week, The Band Perry joined Taylor Swift on stage during her "1989" tour stop in Indianapolis. Swift, who used to be on the same label in Nashville as The Band Perry, told the concert crowd, "Something I'm very proud of is that I came up in country music — really proud of it — and I still am such a huge fan of country music, and, in my opinion, the people I'm about to bring out are some of best musicians, some of the best things we've got going in country music." The Band Perry and Swift then sang the Perrys' "If I Die Young":

"I tell you, it was a pretty fun day because Reid and Neil and I were actually in Indianapolis doing our photo shoot for our album that we are just finishing making. I saw the '1989' tour buses, and I was like, 'Aw, Taylor's a buddy, we should absolutely send her a gift and tell her to have a great night with the Hoosiers.' So, about 45 minutes into making the call and sending some flowers, we got a call — her mother called our dad. (She) were like, 'Are the kids in town? Because Taylor really wants them to come and play "If I Die Young."' So it was such an exciting day."

The Band Perry, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Mohegan Sun Arena; $29, $49; mohegansun.com.