Music

Sugarland’s Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles had no plans to release new music — until their longtime friends Little Big Town came calling.

“I think the fun part for us at our age and stage of the game is that we do things for fun — and we’ve always done it for fun and art and heart,” Nettles tells Billboard. “But as you get older, you get different options. And we love Little Big Town so much, so when they asked, ‘Hey, do you want to go on tour?’ we had to say yes.”

“When they start singing, they’re like angels,” Bush adds.

In October, Little Big Town and Sugarland will launch their Take Me Home Tour with another harmony-driven act, the family trio The Castellows.

To celebrate, Bush and Nettles dusted off a quartet of unreleased recordings from 2019 to make their new EP, There Goes the Neighborhood, which came out Aug. 9 via Big Machine Records. The EP comes six years after Sugarland’s 2018 album Bigger.

Bush and Nettles contributed writing to all five of the duo’s No. 1 Country Airplay hits, such as “Want To” and “Settlin,’” as well as nearly all of the original songs on their albums, except occasional tracks such as the 2018 Taylor Swift collaboration “Babe,” written by Swift and Train’s Pat Monahan, and “Just Might (Make Me Believe),” a solo write from former Sugarland member Kristen Hall.

So, it is notable that on There Goes the Neighborhood, Nettles and Bush recorded outside songs from some of Nashville’s top-shelf writers and artist/writers. The result is the pair lending their voices to songs including the keen-eyed criticism of gentrification “There Goes the Neighborhood” (written by Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd and Connie Harrington), and the torch ballad “Georgia Is Yours” (written by Thomas Rhett, Rhett Akins, Sam Ellis, Josh Kerr, Eric Olson and Emily Weisband).

“That was absolutely intentional,” Nettles says of recording outside songs. “We approached this with the question of, ‘What would happen if we recorded an EP of other people’s songs that we did not write on? What would that creative process be? How would that feel?’ It has been a few years and Kristian and I, when we were playing around with the idea of putting this out, we went back and listened to it. The funny thing is I feel like sometimes Kristian and I have been sort of pioneers. I think we’ve been a few years ahead sometimes of what is current [sonically].”

“When we recorded ‘There Goes the Neighborhood,’ they would have thought it was a little too honky-tonk for the time, except now Lainey Wilson’s happened,” Bush adds. “I listened back to this song, and I remember texting Jennifer and I was like, ‘You should listen back to these. I’m producing current Megan Moroney stuff, and our stuff is not too far off.’”

As Bush was producing other artists, he was hearing the songs being pitched to those acts that he never heard as part of Sugarland.

“Jennifer and I have never really been pitched a song [that we have recorded]. No one really knew what to send us, or they would send us stuff that sounded like [the duo’s 2010 hit] ‘Stuck Like Glue.’ The machinery of these incredible craftsmen in Nashville is based around what they know of you as an artist already, and because Jennifer always kind of leaned forward, no one really knows where we’re leaning.”

While the prospect of challenging themselves as artists was one aspect of choosing to record outside songs, Bush says there was an additional motive.

“I remember at the time we were looking at these songs there was a real concern about females on country radio, and one of the excuses that was being passed around a lot was, ‘There’s just no songs.’ I was interested in finding out, ‘Is that really true, or is that just something somebody would say?’ It turns out great writers are writing great songs for women’s voices all over the place. And if this isn’t a testament to that, I don’t know what is.”

With the release of There Goes the Neighborhood timed to support the upcoming tour, the duo doesn’t have any plans for another project — but stresses never say never.

“We’re not working on anything right now,” Nettles says. “The joy of this [EP] was doing it the way we did it. I would be open to exploring the same process again, in terms of other people’s songs.”

“Knowing us, we would write them,” Bush interjects with a laugh, while Nettles adds, “Yeah, if we were going to be thinking toward a new album, it would be something that we would write.”

Meanwhile, the pair remain busy on non-Sugarland pursuits. Nettles wrapped up filming the television series The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon, which is set to begin airing next year. Bush has wrapped production on projects for the Indigo Girls and Matt Nathanson, as well as music for Megan Moroney and Runway June.

“We both throw ourselves into things that we love, and I don’t see that stopping,” Nettles says. We’re going to keep doing more of yours, mine, and ours.”

“Neither of us are in retirement,” Bush adds, with a laugh.

In addition to producing other acts, Bush has been intentional in helping artists care for their mental health.

“I think the machine now needs to be fed so many songs that it’s unbelievable what’s being kind of asked of these artists,” Bush says. “I’m empowered to try to help to protect them the best I can. I’m imploring labels to spend the amount of money and energy they would on a stylist, on the mental health of their artists,” Bush says. “That would be a wonderful amount of insurance they could buy themselves to support their artists, even while they’re pressurizing them.”

He adds, “When Megan [Moroney] came to ask me to produce her records—I had been helping her, but to officially do it—I said, ‘I’ll do it as long as you get a therapist.’ She started going and once she started going, she started thanking me. [When] you’re 25, 26 years old, the pressures of the label, the pressure of friends, all that stuff—there’s no outlet. When you go through this pressurization of becoming an artist in front of people–for us at least, we didn’t have the internet taking pictures of us every day. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman and doing that. I happen to be in a place where I can help you make a better recording, but while I’m in the room, I want to make sure that you’re okay.”