Sugarland ‘Enjoy’ new album, hit single
From John Gerome

NASHVILLE—Jennifer Nettles seems to live in a state of perpetual motion. The Sugarland lead singer uses words like “hyper-stimulation” and “super-dynamic” to describe how she and musical partner Kristian Bush live on the fly, racing from show to show, event to event.
On this particular morning, in a hotel restaurant, she and Bush have just learned they would be performing “God Bless America” the next night during Game 4 of the World Series. Nettles, a striking 32-year-old with wispy blond hair, said the spur-of-the-moment shift is typical. “People a lot of times will say, ‘Oh, have they changed with all this fame.’ No, they’ve changed, man, because they’re out here working their butts off in a new environment they’ve never been in,” Nettles said. “It’s not fame or celebrity or money or anything like that. It’s change because it’s hyper-stimulation, it’s super-dynamic.”
Sugarland knows about change. They broke onto the charts a couple years ago with their debut album, “Twice the Speed of Life” as a trio. However, at the height of their success, chief songwriter and founding member Kristen Hall discovered she didn’t necessarily want to live twice the speed of life and bailed. Nettles and Bush decided to carry on as a duo. So far, it’s working perfectly. “Want To,” the first single from their new album “Enjoy the Ride,” is No. 4 on Billboard’s country singles chart. The album was released Tuesday. “It’s a super boost of confidence,” Nettles said. “People ask, ‘Are you worried about the sophomore slump?’ I normally say, ‘I don’t give that any energy.’ Once we wrote the first song — ‘Settlin’ — I thought, ‘This is good. We’re going to be fine.’”
Nettles and Bush, who both started out performing in rock groups in Atlanta where they still live, wrote or co-wrote all 11 tracks and co-produced with Byron Gallimore, who’s crafted albums by Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Lee Ann Womack. “Garth (producer Garth Fundis) produced the first record, and we let him guide us into current contemporary country radio,” Bush said. “But as we got into this album we figured we had been out in that country music radio world for a couple of years, and we wanted someone to expand what we were doing.” The new album isn’t a big departure. The country-pop sound and sunny optimism are still there. But whereas the characters on the first album were eager to leave their lives behind for something more, those on “Enjoy the Ride” seem more comfortable in their skins.
The playful “County Line” celebrates small-town life with lines like “Kettle Corn and 4-H babies, pink slips and whitewall tires, bet you 20 I’ll beat you there, down on the county line.” “The songs and the stories they’re telling are great,” said Mike Macho, music director at WKHX-FM in Atlanta. “It makes you feel good — that’s the best way I could put it.” Sugarland took a different route to Nashville than most country acts. Already a popular regional group when they signed a major-label deal with Mercury Nashville in 2003, their grass-roots ascent is more typical of rock bands than country singers.
Hall, Nettles and Bush each were veterans of Atlanta’s music scene before they joined forces. Hall was a singer/songwriter who had recorded a few solo albums; Nettles fronted popular local bands Soul Miner’s Daughter and the Jennifer Nettles Band; and Bush was half of the major-label, folk-rock duo Billy Pilgrim. “Twice the Speed of Life” simmered a while before it caught on with radio, but once it did, it took off, producing hits like “Baby Girl” and “Something More” and selling 2 million copies.