Sugarland express

The band's brand of country-pop is winning fans

NASHVILLE - Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles have arrived at the country-music cable network CMT to do a little advance promotion for their new album. Almost as if it were planned, the duo, who perform as Sugarland, emerge from the elevator just as the replay of the recent CMT Awards - airing on the sleek flat-panel televisions dotting the lobby - reaches their performance.

Looking at the pair - he's a goateed hipster in a faded "I Heart Maywood" T-shirt and plaid fedora, while she's a down-to-earth, sexy blonde in a sea-green mini-dress - you wouldn't peg them for country-music stars. But the proof is hanging right there on the wall.

They hover around a screen watching themselves sing a cover of the '80s Dream Academy hit "Life in a Northern Town," with fellow country friends Jake Owen and the quartet Little Big Town. The harmony-rich arrangement, worked up offhandedly in dressing rooms when the three acts wanted a group finale for their tour last fall, has become a surprise hit. "I haven't seen this yet. Fun!" Nettles exclaims in her honeyed Georgia twang.

Appraising the clip, she and Bush don't obsessively scrutinize their own appearances as they're too busy complimenting their collaborators. In advance of Sugarland's new album, "Love on the Inside," which will be released Tuesday, the duo is on a media blitz today - interviews, TV tapings, and photo shoots - and seem to be relishing it all.

There is an easy chemistry between them; they finish each other's sentences in a way that never feels like interruption. They are not, however, a couple as some fans assume. But with the hustle and bustle of the road, they've gotten closer than they ever expected. After all, they've seen each other naked. "Oh, yeah, we're definitely co-ed," Bush, a happily married father of two, says with a laugh.

In an industry where being plucked from obscurity has become more common, Bush, 38, and Nettles, 33, made it big the traditional way: They struggled for a decade to become an overnight sensation. After years slugging it out separately in the Atlanta club scene, the pair - along with original member Kristen Hall - fortuitously decided to give the country format a go. Alongside friends like Little Big Town and Kenny Chesney, Sugarland has helped usher in a wave of music that is less concerned with genre-branding than delivering what fans want.

Any residual grumbling about their country bona fides has gone by the wayside, says Bush, an omnivorous music fan and multi-instrumentalist who equally reveres Hüsker Dü and Steve Earle. He admits he worried early on about whether he could wear his Doc Martens onstage but thinks that country music has changed.

"I think the great thing that we've seen since we've been in this genre is that the fans have defined what country music is," Bush says.

"When somebody comes up to us at a meet-and-greet and says, 'I usually don't like country music at all, but I really like your record,' we say, 'You are who we write music for,' " Nettles says.

"To me country is a vibe and not a blueprint," says Jay Frank, senior vice president for music strategy at CMT. That "anything but country" mentality has faded, he says. "Sugarland pops up in that list of acceptable country artists. Why? Because it doesn't sound like the formula and it's great music."

"I think the attitudes we've had our whole career even before Sugarland has been in pinch-me mode," Bush says of their two multiplatinum albums and raft of industry accolades they've received since forming in 2003. "I think we're people that look at our lives as musicians and to be able to make a living that way as definitely not only a dream but a gift. That being said, it feels right, it feels like we're in the right place."

That sentiment might have come as a shock to their younger selves. Throughout the 1990s, Bush was half of the folk-pop duo Billy Pilgrim, a sort of Indigo Boys who had minor success on a major label. Nettles was simultaneously developing a regional following in Atlanta with bands that fused rock, soul, and folk. Between them they recorded six albums before hooking up with fellow indie singer-songwriter Hall, who was well-known on the folk scene, to form Sugarland in 2003.

All three were known for their introspective style, but the trio had a mission on its 2004 debut, "Twice the Speed of Life": to succeed.

"We were just trying to figure out how to write for country radio," says Nettles, curled up on a loveseat next to Bush at the Hermitage Hotel prior to the CMT outing. "We knew we were songwriters and we knew what it meant to write a good song. And we even knew how to write with country being the genre, but specifically for country radio, that was a different animal. So we were having fun experimenting there."

The album's out-of-the-box success, thanks to rousing hits "Baby Girl" and "Something More," confirmed that they were onto something in the lab. The element of calculation had more to do with getting out of their heads then selling out their hearts.

"I think if both of them were writing on their own, the songs would probably be a lot darker and thoughtful and probably wouldn't hit the radio," says singer-songwriter Ellis Paul, who befriended Bush during his Billy Pilgrim days working the New England folk circuit where Paul got his start. "But they made a vow that Sugarland was going to do songs that really make people get up and get excited, and they kept true to that. I don't think they were compromising at all."

Hall departed amicably in 2005, citing the grind involved with touring, and Bush and Nettles soldiered on as a duo scaling even greater heights with 2006's "Enjoy the Ride." The sophomore disc offered a refined version of the debut's strengths - catchy pop-country tunes that were more Mellencamp than Merle, everyman and woman tales, and Nettles's powerhouse vocals.

Throw in the hit crossover duet with Bon Jovi, "Who Says You Can't Go Home," and Sugarland swiftly graduated from arena opening act (Brooks and Dunn, Chesney) to headliners in their own right. In the Boston area the group is doing a pair of comparatively smaller, therefore already sold-out, shows at the South Shore Music Circus (Aug. 21) and the Cape Cod Melody Tent (Aug. 22).

Ironically, now that Bush and Nettles have tasted success in the boot-scootin' realm, they find themselves circling back on "Love on the Inside" to the type of introspective songwriting that defined their pre-Sugarland careers. In addition to the summery "All I Want to Do" and the anthemic rocker "Take Me as I Am," the pair explore character studies and sounds that have roots in classic country and folk. "Genevieve" is an old-timey Appalachian-influenced number that Nettles could imagine singing in the Southern Baptist church in which she first discovered her steel-and-satin voice. The pretty waltz-time track "Already Gone" sketches out the highs and lows that happen when you grab life by the horns and it grabs you back.

"Stay," the final hit from the band's sophomore album, made Bush and Nettles feel comfortable enough to pursue this more reflective direction. The song was never intended as a single. The pair was itching to do something different for the 2007 CMT Awards and floated the idea of performing the raw acoustic ballad, which is told from the perspective of an "other woman" who was slowly wising up to her own worth.

The performance drew raves and the group made a simple, arresting video in which Nettles sang directly to the camera, getting so choked up at one point that she stopped lip synching to the playback. (Nettles makes clear that although she was divorced last year, the song predates Sugarland and isn't autobiographical).

"The response was ridiculously out of control," says CMT's Frank. "It has everything country radio says they don't do: It was over four minutes long, it was a ballad, it was fully acoustic. The video blew us away and the audience flipped out over it immediately. And it became a turning point because for a song that was just supposed to be 'let's just wind down the album,' it juiced the album back to life again."

"I think they're really finding out who they are as people more and more, and it's reflected in the songwriting and the music," says Phillip Sweet, songwriter and vocalist with Little Big Town.

"Both of them are really gracious people, I think partially because they broke in their 30s instead of breaking when they were 19," Paul says. "They've been through the ringer, and they know that they're supposed to enjoy what they have because they've been through the dark side of the music business."

And if Sugarland's new album wins the group an even broader fan base, that's just fine. Bring on the stadiums, they say.

"I have a grand plan," Nettles announces.

"Explain," replies Bush.

"Why not say we're going to shoot for stadiums and do those for a number of years and then when the timing is right, at a time that we will know, stop doing that and do something completely different and cool?," she says, envisioning a return to the club and coffeehouse gigs of yore. "Music changes, your career evolves, evolution is not a direct line, it's circular. It moves all around, so why not have fun with that?"