“It was very interesting for me because in country music, no one had really been exposed to my singing voice. So, in a lot of ways, I was a surprise,” said Kristian Bush, singer/songwriter/guitarist of the Grammy Award–winning duo Sugarland, in reference to his 2015 debut solo record, Southern Gravity. The record, which spawned the single “Trailer Hitch,” was created during the band’s five-year hiatus, which Bush and Sugarland’s lead singer, Jennifer Nettles, took to pursue personal projects. In addition to his album, Bush wrote original songs for playwright Janece Shaffer’s musical Troubadour, which made its debut at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta on January 28, 2017. For her part, Nettles released three solo records — That Girl, Playing with Fire, and To Celebrate Christmas — and started a family.
Despite their promise that the break was only temporary, many folks questioned whether or not the pair — Bush and Kristen Hall formed Sugarland in 2002; Nettles joined in 2003, with Hall departing in 2006 — would actually reunite. “I think it’s fun now that the conversation is back to one of trust,” said Bush. “Because people really were distrustful of our hiatus. We got a lot of people asking for more drama than was actually there. Now it’s, ‘Remember when we told you we would [get back together]? Well, we’re doing it. And [now] there’s this kind of joyful moment in the middle of the set where we start playing our solo stuff.”
Nettles and Bush resurrected Sugarland in 2017 and are currently on their Still the Same tour, which will keep them on the road until September. In early 2018, they recorded their sixth studio album, titled Bigger, which drops on June 8. “We wrote the record … in about nine days,” said Bush in a phone interview with the Santa Barbara Independent. “And we recorded it in about four. What you’re getting is very topical music.”