10 Questions with ... Kristian Bush

Website: www.KristianBush.com.
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/KristianBushOfficial
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/KristianBush
Instagram: www.Instagram.com/KristianBush

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Kristian Bush isn't new to the music scene. You may remember him from his Rock duo Billy Pilgrim or his Country duo Sugarland. Now, Kristian continuing his journey as a solo artist, having made his solo debut. He made his solo debut in 2014 with "Trailer Hitch" on Streamsound Records. Signed to BBR Music Group's Wheelhouse Records imprint now, Kristian has recently released his new single, "Sing Along." He sat down with All Access to discuss his new music; his experience writing the music for Atlanta's Alliance Theater's newest play, "Troubadour;" and what it has been like producing Lindsay Ell's debut album.

1. Hi, Kristian! Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Let’s jump right in and talk about your current single, “Sing Along.” Can you tell us the story behind writing this song, and how did it come to be your single?

I have a really bad habit of writing a song in the middle of the time when I’m supposed to be writing a song. Usually what happens is: because I love writing so much, I could get myself down into a topic in the middle of a song and then either get frustrated or get hungry and it’s time for lunch. I am a very distractible guy, so a lot of times I don’t want to stop writing. I just might want to hit pause, and I’ll just chew on something new. This one was like most of my songs that end up on the radio – it was the song in between. Inspiration-wise, it’s exactly what it looks like. The song is exactly about my life. I made a terrible mistake in my relationship, and I was trying to make it right. But I was trying to make it right in a different kind of way. We all make mistakes, and there is a place where each party has been a piece of the problem. We’ve all had our piece of the issue that we carry around. I was trying to send her a song – literally send her a song – that says “Would you please remember us fondly? I’m sorry for what happened. There is no way we can fix this. I love who we are and I hope you remember it that way.” It was very bittersweet as a song. Strangely, like my other songs, it’s doing what it tells you it wants to do, where it actually is trying to get you to sing along with it. I wanted to get that literal song she’d get stuck inside of her head and see if she would think it through again. I’m starting to realize that I do this more often than I think – I really like the songs to be exactly what I’m asking them to be. If it’s “Stuck Like Glue,” I want it to be sticky. It’s kind of onomatopoetic.

2. Does this mean we can expect a new album soon?

Absolutely. I have a new relationship with Broken Bow – with their Wheelhouse Records, which is the newest imprint. I love the people over there. I love them deeply. In some ways, they are the people who helped the success of “Trailer Hitch.” Teddi Bonadies is the head of promotion, and she and Jennifer Shaffer were instrumental in getting “Trailer Hitch” in front of programmers and audiences. It was this unbelievable success that was very unlikely. It’s the same team back together. We’re all at Broken Bow now. The whole year I’ve been writing music, and just like the last record was the most joyous take I could find on some really bad times, so is this record a reflection of my last year. I’ve had some amazing thrills of trying to get my heart to work again – when you go through a divorce you get a little disoriented for a while. I’m now six years out, and I’m ready to put it back up on the tracks to see if I can get it to run! You’ll hear me talk about that. And then, in the middle of the year, my dad – we were somewhat disconnected as people – he went through a terrible illness, a chronic and terminal illness, and we reconciled much before he died. And you know me, the glass is always half full in my life somehow. The last great heroic move that a parent could make, the dad who – our relationship was kind of sideways – pulled it together and became the dad you wanted him to be. And not only that, but he showed you how to do it in his last months of life. That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

3. We also, of course, want to talk about Troubadour. How did this project come together? How did you find it, or how did it find you?

It actually found me. A very famous playwright from Atlanta, Janece Shaffer, who has won all these awards around the United States, reached out to me here in Atlanta and said, “Would you write one song for me? I have a play about Country music in the 1950s.” And, I’m game for anything, if I you know me. I thought this can’t be that much different than writing for TV or film. I have a couple TV theme songs I’ve written and sung on. So I met with her – and this was maybe a year and a half ago or two years ago – and it was a very compelling story. She told me the whole story over breakfast, and by the end of breakfast, I had the song written. It opened last night here in Atlanta – I’m glowing at the moment! One song turned into a second one within a couple of weeks. I was nervous that maybe she didn’t like the first one that much, so I tried to give her choices. Sometimes when I write for movies, the directors need more than one choice to pick which one fits best in their film. And she was like, “Great!” She took all three songs and put them in. The next thing I know, the executive director of the Alliance Theater here in Atlanta – which is our giant regional theater – Susan Booth called and said, “Hey, we’re going to do a table read, and we’d like to invite you down.” And I’m quickly Googling “table read” while I’m saying, “Sure that’s great.” I haven’t had real exposure to theater, much less musical theater. At the end of the table read, everyone cleared out, and the director turned to me and she said, “We’re going to need more music.” I said, “Are you serious?” And, she said yes. So now we’re 16 songs in. It debuted last night – it had its world premiere here in Atlanta. It sold out and is their most successful production to date, besides “The Color Purple.” And we’re in Day One. It’s amazing!

4. I know your songs have been on TV and movies, but what is it like to sit there and see your music performed live in front of you in a play setting?

It’s very nerve-wracking! One of the joys of the way my songs work is that I’m usually playing them to people that don’t know them yet, so there is a lot of putting on your best Bruce Springsteen and trying to convince them of the song during the performance. In musical theater, I’m not on stage at all. I’m just the composer. So, I’m watching these actors try to convince a crowd of these songs. I keep thinking to myself, “I wish I could help them.” The truth is, each of these actors is so good – and some of them are actually Country stars. They just effortlessly communicate the causes and context of the story. This is not a musical where people break into song because they feel something, like, “Oh my god, I love this morning, and I love coffee, so I’m going to sing about it!” No, not at all. These people are singer-songwriters; they are artists. The story is the king of Country music is retiring in 1951, and the question is, will his son step into the giant shadow? On top of it is the story of the way clothing changed in Country music. There is a point at which white shirts and string ties and brown and gray pants turned into these gigantically, beautifully, color-filled rhinestone suits. It’s the moment that it happened. If you look at the names of the tailors, suddenly they go from people down the street – Smith whatever – to these incredibly Jewish names with these Jewish tailors that have come from I don’t know where to create these unbelievably bright-looking cowboy suits. It’s about change in Country music. And, it’s about change in Country music today as much as it’s about change in Country music then.

5. What has it been like working on a project about one city you love – Nashville, and the tale of Country music in the ‘50s – in the other city you love, Atlanta? What does it feel like to share this story about Nashville with the city and people of Atlanta?

You get best question of the week! Oh, my god, you cannot believe how much press I’ve been doing, because I guess when you do something just outside of your genre, everyone gets excited, but you get question of the week. First of all, it’s very humbling, because living in a place doesn’t make you an expert. I am very aware of that. I didn’t grow up in Nashville; I grew up in Sevierville, TN, which is way out in the mountains. But I do feel the responsibility of representing Country music. It’s one of the reasons I’m the voices of Country Music on BBC Two. I’m one of the DJs. I take it seriously. But, I also take it seriously from an artist’s perspective. I don’t claim to be a historian nor an aficionado. I can tell you what it feels like to stand on the stage at the Ryman, what it feels like to play the Opry, what it feels like to win a CMA, what it feels like to win a Grammy, what it feels like to be 46 years old and be releasing a song next to new artists, and what it feels like to watch 10 years of a career be respected. It’s a very weird life. Representing all of those things about Nashville and Country music in Atlanta is unique. Atlanta has a gigantic heart. It’s one of these beautiful, open places in the South. It’s a very self-aware community. It’s the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Literally, in the center of it is the Carter Presidential Center. The arts community here is built on this terrible tragedy where there was this plane crash, and suddenly most of the art patrons’ wealth in Atlanta got inherited from all these parents who lost their lives to all their children. That’s how they founded the High Museum, and that’s how they got to the Alliance Theater and the Woodruff Arts Center and all this crazy stuff. Atlanta has this identity as an artist community that I’m learning, that’s like an incubator. They love to support dreams that are nearly impossible, and it seeps into everything down here. It’s this weird encouragement of “try it, try it, try it!” which is absolutely connected to Nashville, because Nashville has this, “if you have a dream and a song, you can do it.” You know? I feel like my responsibility is to stand where those two places cross. Not only be it as a person, but to be it as a creator. I’m teaching that story to the people around me, and I’m also living that story.

6. What was the writing process like writing Country music set in the 1950s – how different was that writing process for you?

I think it’s the same muscle that I use when I write with Lindsay Ell, or even when I have a writer in and I’m the artist. The reason I think it’s the same muscle is that you’re trying to pay attention to the subtleties of the story that someone is telling you and find the emotional part of it and see if you can write that into the song. That’s what I do anyway. The weird part is that the person doesn’t exist. It’s a fictional character, so I depended on Janece, the playwright, for very long conversations where I would talk to her about these characters. They were so real to her, and the environment and the universe that they lived in was so real that she had those answers. Some of those answers weren’t even in the actual script, but she knew them anyway, because a good creator creates the entire world. It’s like Harry Potter. It’s the same muscle to tell the story of Billy Mason, who is the man that’s retiring. His first his song was the first thing she asked me. If this was his first hit – and I kind of did the math – that had to have been written between 1935 and 1937. I don’t know anything about that music. So I just went researching what it sounded like, and I thought, “Well this sounds like music from when I grew up.” I grew up in East Tennessee, and I thought, “That’s just mountain music. I can write that! What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? She’s not going to like it and I’m going to try again.” But what I was most interested in was much like “Sing Along,” which has this layer of deep, deep truth about what I was literally going through when I wrote it. How do I recreate the truth of Billy Mason in 1937 and imagine what he’s going through as to why he wrote that song and what he put in it? Even though it’s being performed 20 years later – that’s his last song at the Ryman, because he’s retiring. It’s cool. It’s a little bit of a mind bender. You have to track it and keep track of when things are happening, but I didn’t write it any differently. I asked her, so just like we wrote “Baby Girl” as a wish, what would his wish have been? I just used my own experience about what is it like to write a first hit, what does it take? What does that story mean, and how does it define the entire rest of your career by accident? You know, forever Kenny Chesney is singing, “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” right? And it defines his environment, even though he has way surpassed whatever that language was that he started with. Sugarland is the same way. “Baby Girl” is the story of trying and wishing that you make it, and hoping that you could send money back to your parents if you ever did, and then we made it! Haha! It meant something different when we sang it in 2004 than it does when I sing it right now at my shows in 2017. But, it has within it the kernel of everything it’s supposed to be, so I have to create that song and then all of the subsequent songs for the different characters based on their lives and where they are in their careers. I weirdly think that I have been in many of those situations myself, so I just had to put the right clothes on the song so that they fit into the era that the time machine was taking them to.

7. Like you just said, you’ve been in many of the same situations as the characters in the play, so it was relatable. Do you think you would consider writing the music for another play? Was it a one-time thing? Or would it depend on the play?

I think that this level of storytelling is one that I have never previously been exposed to. I didn’t realize how powerful it could be. I do want to do it again, and I hope to. The invitations are already beginning. I couldn’t be more thrilled. It doesn’t seem like a vocation for the faint of heart, and I even say that about Country music. There is a lot of rejection in Country music – or in all commercial music – you have to get used to people saying no. In musical theater, it seems like you need to put on that same armor to walk through it. If you connect with the right people – I have had such good guidance from Susan Booth, from Janece Shaffer, and even friends along the way. A man named Casey Nicholaw has been very kind and has been guiding me. Rita Wilson has been great in teaching me and reaching out to Sara Bareilles and saying, “How did you end up doing ‘Waitress?’” Is this what we do now? I expected to do more, but I am not finished telling you my stories yet as a solo artist, nor am I finished telling stories as Sugarland.

8. That leads into my next question. The last time we spoke with you (in 2014) we discussed your decision and Jennifer Nettles’ decision to both put out solo projects. You said it did not signify a Sugarland breakup. So, asking the question on everybody’s mind – are there any plans for a reunion in the future?

I hope so. I’m always ready for one. That is my current attitude. I mean, I just made a musical. Anything is possible. Haha!

Since then, you’ve been doing the whole solo thing, which is different from all of your previous experience in a band or group. What has radio tour been like as a solo artist, and how has it been different from previous experiences?

First of all, Country radio is about relationships. It’s about these people who believe in music. It’s exactly where I belong. I love making songs for the radio. I just love it. I love making it when it’s my voice. I love making it when it’s my voice along with Jennifer’s. I love it! I’m making Lindsay Ell’s record right now as a producer. I love making that. Oh, my gosh, I can’t wait for you to hear it! You’re going to die! And I think that Country radio is so viable and healthy still – and I have maintained this for a long time – that the responsibility and true honor of being on the radio means that complete strangers are listening to your music. You should never take that for granted – ever! I don’t care who you are. That is an honor to do it. And then there is a responsibility that I layer on, personally, that I require of myself. There is a responsibility if you’re asking someone to put it on the radio. Please, please be thoughtful in giving it meaning to try to help somebody else through whatever it is they’re going through. Whether you need to make their day better by cheering them up or commiserate by saying let’s go get a drink. Whatever it is that you’re asking these men and women who are Program Directors and DJs and Music Directors to go and play over and over on the radio, understand the responsibility of what you’re doing. Don’t put them in a position that they can’t or don’t want to distribute a message across the world. Give them something to work with. That’s always the thing that I love the most.

9. The Country landscape is sonically so wide right now. There are tons of influences from Pop, and Rock, and R&B – and it’s awesome! You’ve got this album in the works – where would you say that music fits into the Country landscape?

My music has never left the genre. It has always stayed in it. I agree with you that Country music has a very wide palette at the moment. I enjoy the entire wits of it. I do feel that the music I’m making and recording right now comes from the combination of everything that Nashville gives me, which is this unbelievable respect of craft and narrative. You have these great writers that are teaching me every day. I firmly pull on the authenticity of Atlanta, the Georgia sound that we have down here when it comes to incredible players, and I love the combination of things that Atlanta requires. There is a huge Urban and R&B influence down here, and then there is also a very Allman-Brothers-Southern-Rock-meets-Black-Crowes feeling down here. If I squish that with Nashville’s respect for songs and melodies, you get what I do. It’s like Springsteen and Otis Redding gets squished through a weird, cool, fresh version of R.E.M. I love the kind of music that I’m making – it’s similar to what you have always expected from Sugarland, which is Country music that reaches out to people who had no idea they were Country fans. They just hadn’t been invited that way. I intend to give them that invitation.

10. You already touched on this, but you’re producing Lindsay Ell’s debut album. How did that fall into place, and what has that process been like?

It was a request from Benny Brown. He sat me down, and he and Lindsay and her manager asked if I would be interested in producing her record. I said, “Well, let’s sit down and talk first before we do that, because producing a record for me is a pretty big commitment, and I take it deeply.” I take it very seriously. It’s not a 9-5 job for me when I produce a record. It’s 24/7 full immersion until we finish. I was taught to produce records by a man named Hugh Padgam, and Hugh produced my first record on Atlantic Records in 1993. He had produced The Police, and David Bowie, and Phil Collins, and he taught me how to do it at a very young age. I’ve had unbelievable instructors. I take it seriously. Lindsay and I sat down and talked, and I got a better idea of what she wanted help with. I feel very qualified to do that with her. What I really did is, I taught her how to do it, because I’m an artist. That’s one of my skillsets as a producer, is getting into the mind of an artist and helping support them into becoming something. I think albums are sacred, and the long play record is an art form that is even harder to maintain than it ever has been. I think it’s extremely important, because without that you don’t build fans. You just build advertisements. Fans believe in what you believe, and you have to start figuring out what it is you believe when you’re an artist. Why does someone come to your show? To see me play? – No, that’s not why they come. They come because of what you believe in in your songs, and when they sing those back with you, then they are believing in those things together as strangers, and then they’re not alone. Right? There has to be a lot of thought and intention put in upstream when you make records, in my opinion. This seemed to fit very well with Lindsay. She was on the search and journey to figure out exactly what she wants to say. I think she’s at a certain time in her life and age and experience where she has something to say, and it fit very well with me, because of my passion for trying to evolve the conversation of the voices of women in culture. I don’t know how I got here, but somehow I spent ten years helping with Jennifer craft a voice for women. What to say, and why would you say it, and what do we believe? Lindsay is absolutely the next step of that conversation for me. She is doing an exceptional job at becoming an artist and doing the hard work that it takes to making a record that I would be proud to have my 11-year old daughter sing every word for. It’s so good! She is such a good singer, and you probably didn’t think about that, because you think it’s cool that she plays guitar. You forget that all of those things are just pieces of a puzzle that add up to you are such a good artist. Being an artist is repeatable.

Is there anything I didn’t ask that you want readers to know?

It’s a rare moment in a career. It’s not lost on me, and I am deeply humbled that a lot of things happened at the same time on top of each other. It seems to be more of something that happens to people who are movie stars. You know how they disappear for a while, and then all of a sudden Robert Downey Jr. is everywhere? And you’re like, where did that come from? Did someone orchestrate that? How did we get the comeback of Michael Keaton? So, I’m here to tell you that it’s a series of fortunate coincidences that you’ve got to chalk up to something. For me to have a song go to radio in the same week that a musical is dropping and Lindsay’s record… to see all of those things happen at the same time – especially from me in a life and a career where people didn’t believe me when I first started singing by myself and making things. I just got the feeling that people were like, what exactly did you do in this band? People looked at me funny like, why don’t you just stay home? And I’m like, you have no idea. I have an ex-wife, and I’ve got bills to pay. I love this job. It’s my favorite thing to do on Earth to wake up and make more stuff. To finally feel like it all is supposed to be happening. If I ever needed you to put down what you’re doing and listen to my single or walk down the street and buy a ticket to Troubadour or go out and see Brad Paisley because you’re going to see his opening act Lindsay Ell, this is when I want you to do it. I don’t ever wave my flag, because I’m a quiet man about it, but right now I need you to wave my flag, because I can’t believe there is even a flag. I am super grateful. There are times when you just have to stand up and grab the thing in front of you. I’m going to do that this time, just because… when am I ever going to get that chance again? Thank you for telling a story and for telling it the way that you do!