Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood duet in ‘Somethin’ Bad’ video

“Somethin’ Bad,” the just-released video for Miranda Lambert’s duet with Carrie Underwood, is heating things up online, much as the single has done on country radio — not surprising given the individual firepower of the two country stars.

But the collaboration was anything but a slam dunk. There was a time after Lambert asked Underwood to join her on the track that she was convinced the answer would be no.

“I was nervous,” Lambert told Pop & Hiss recently. “After I sent her the track, she wanted to live with it for a few minutes, and rightly so.”

For a few tense days, the 30-year-old Texan had convinced herself that Underwood wasn’t interested. Then came the reply.

“She was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’ ” Lambert said. “I respect her. She’s so great. She’s built her own empire. She came by it so fast, but she has kept so poised and classy. Anytime she’s on anything, I know country’s going to look good.”

In the video, directed by Trey Fanjoy, she and Underwood go on a Thelma and Louise-like bad-girl escapade involving a bank caper, a high-stakes card game and a side-by-side motorcycle ride out of town.

For Lambert, it was a chance to bring two high-profile women artists together, a rarity in these days of male-dominated country radio and video.

“Nobody collaborates,” she said. “Well, no girls in country have, hardly at all. So it’s about damn time. There’s not that many of us to collaborate. But they’re coming. The door is open, we’re holding it open, and I know there’s going to be this whole wave of females who are gonna be awesome.

“It goes in phases. Right now it’s the guys time, and pretty soon the girls are gonna take back over, then the guys will take back over. That’s just the way it goes.”

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