at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\nOne more thing about Little Big Town: It\u2019s a harmony vocal group, and there\u2019s robust melodicism and lyrical depth to their songs, most of which are written by the members. It\u2019s not barstool boot-stomping, old school jingoistic country music, any more than it\u2019s the cookie-cutter \u201cNext-Gen\u201d pop country so popular on the radio these days.<\/p>\n
Yet it\u2019s catchy, and it\u2019s country. Albeit with shimmering vocal harmonies.<\/p>\n
You might know the hits: \u201cPontoon,\u201d \u201cGirl Crush,\u201d \u201cBetter Man,\u201d \u201cLittle White Church,\u201d \u201cBring it on Home,\u201d \u201cTornado,\u201d \u201cBoondocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of which, group member Sweet says in this Catalyst interview, led up to It\u2019s a Dying Art, produced by Gena Johnson and featuring contributions from Jason Isbell, Kelsea Ballerini and Ashley Monoe.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: This kind of longevity \u2013 25 years and counting \u2013 in a country music group, with the same lineup, is pretty rare. What do you attribute that to?<\/p>\n
Phillip Sweet: It\u2019s so crazy to hear that sometimes, because time has just flown by. The experience together, it\u2019s bonded us. We have fun, we laugh a lot, we respect each other. We realize that not many people get the chance to do this, and we love what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the relationship dynamic?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s weird and fun and interesting, and everyone kinda plays their roles. We\u2019ve never really lost that, from when we were driving ourselves in a van, just making gas money and to pay for a sandwich on the way. Artists should experience that \u2013 it\u2019s raw, man. It\u2019s what bonded us, and I think that\u2019s where the longevity comes in. We\u2019ve always been kinda scrappers, you know? \u201cWe\u2019re gonna keep going,\u201d even when it didn\u2019t look \u2026 great. We believed in ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of your music walks on a razor\u2019s edge between pop\/rock and country. The harmonies are almost like Crosby, Stills & Nash. Or Fleetwood Mac. Was that a conscious thing from the beginning?<\/p>\n
We definitely love those bands. I love Fleetwood Mac. We\u2019re big fans of all the harmonies; there was so much of that too. All these \u201cyacht rock\u201d records, all that stuff influenced all of us. For us, being a mix of so many things, so many different kind of flavors and spices \u2026 the four of us, and our voices, was that original sound we found when we sang together for the first time. There\u2019s a special blend between the four of our voices.<\/p>\n
None of our voices are perfect, by any means. But we didn\u2019t tune our vocals and do that stuff. We really got real performances. You hear something in a blend with the imperfections in our voices. That\u2019s been the fun part, too, to explore that further as we grow and evolve.<\/p>\n
What does collaboration with other artists do for you?<\/p>\n
I think for us it was just the natural evolution of the songs that were written. Kelsea\u2019s voice added such a cool element to \u201cClosing Time\u201d; it\u2019s sexy, smoky vocals on everyone\u2019s part, but essentially the girls and stuff.<\/p>\n
That and the Jason Isbell thing, that was Gena, the producer. She had worked with Jason before, on some of his earlier stuff. He doesn\u2019t really do a whole lot that he doesn\u2019t get into, and he really enjoyed it. His touch that\u2019s in it, it\u2019s so stark and haunting.<\/p>\n
And Ashley Monroe, since she was in on the writing she was an element in there that just needed to be in \u201cSucker For a Sad Song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
You work at the service of the song, as opposed to chasing a fan base \u2026<\/p>\n
I totally appreciate that, because we\u2019ve collaborated with so many different artists over the years \u2013 Lionel Richie, Keith Urban, the list could go on \u2013 but we\u2019d never really had any on our records. So, it just kind of naturally happened this way, nothing forced, all about the art. And about the song, like you\u2019re saying. Serve the song.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The track \u201cHey There Sunshine\u201d is uplifting and hopeful, in a way that\u2019s not typical of country music. It\u2019s about coming out of serious depression. It said to me that it\u2019s different, it\u2019s not about trying to score a radio hit.<\/p>\n
I love getting played on the radio, it\u2019s great, but everything with this record is so intentional as far as \u2026 I don\u2019t think we wanted that clouding up the art, like \u201cWe\u2019ve got to put this song, because this or this could happen.\u201d We don\u2019t really do that. And I think that is very important for us and where we\u2019re at right now.<\/p>\n
We had such freedom. We didn\u2019t really want to put a boundary on what we could do. And I think that comes through.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
How would you describe Karen\u2019s role in the group? She\u2019s ostensibly the lead singer, and she does a lot of the songwriting. She co-produced the new album.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like a team, and she\u2019s probably what would be called the quarterback. And we all play different roles; we can all step into the lead whenever we want. And you\u2019ve heard me do a lot more leads in the live show.<\/p>\n
This particular record, she was doing some really cool writing, she just immersed herself in that. And the production part, she didn\u2019t ask to do that, she just basically was doing the work a lot and we were like \u201cYou should get producer credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just kinda been like that: Check your ego at the door and just enjoy getting to do something really cool, have fun, and the best songs will find their way to each other.<\/p>\n
Sometimes what\u2019s left on the cutting room floor, you\u2019re like man, there\u2019s five or six \u2018nother bangers right there, that we can\u2019t even put on here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a couple of things about Little Big Town that make the group unique in country music: More…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-406869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}