Little Big Town forges ahead despite adversity

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Little Big Town’s career has had more stops and starts than a bus ride uptown.

Since forming in 1998, they’ve had multiple label changes and loads of personal drama, and yet the original lineup — Philip Sweet, Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Karen Fairchild — remains intact.

With a new label, a new CD in the works and a high-profile performance at this week’s CMA Music Festival, Sweet says the band feels more stable than it has in awhile.

“It’s a good time for us because we have a fresh perspective,” he said recently. “Now we feel like we’ve got it all lined up a little better and have a really strong outlet to get our music out there.”

The trek hasn’t been easy.

Little Big Town broke through as a quartet with four lead singers, tight harmonies and a ’70s pop/rock sensibility that smacked of groups like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles.

They signed briefly to Mercury Nashville, then to Sony’s Monument Records and then to the independent Equity Music Group where they finally hit big with their 2005 album “The Road to Here,” which included the hits “Boondocks” and “Bring It On Home.”

But Equity fell on hard times (the label folded last year) as the band was releasing their follow up CD, “A Place to Land,” late in 2007.

Capitol Nashville picked them up and rereleased the album in 2008, but by then they’d lost momentum and the disc didn’t catch on.

“We were really proud of the music we had made and felt we had evolved,” Sweet said. “I think the circumstances around that album were really inhibitors and the reason a lot of fans didn’t know it came out or didn’t see it. I feel like we never really tapped into the fans who bought ‘The Road to Here.’”

Apart from professional problems, the band has also gone through its share of life-changing moments personally over the years. Schlapman’s first husband, Steve Roads (also the band’s lawyer), died of a heart attack in 2005. Westbrook and Fairchild married each other in 2006. Both Schlapman and Sweet had children in 2007.

Still, Little Big Town forged on, touring with Keith Urban, Alan Jackson and Sugarland; performing with John Mellencamp on the road and on his ubiquitous truck commercial theme, “This is Our Country;” and launching their first headlining tour.

“I think all those pressures both internally and externally that have been put upon them makes it remarkable that the four of them are still together,” remarked Lon Helton, editor and publisher of the industry trade publication “Country Aircheck.”

On the contrary, Sweet says, the adversity made them closer.

“We’re not a fly-by-night thing, something that was just put together,” he said. “We’re a family. We love what we do, and we want to keep doing it for a long time.”

This month, the band is nominated for two Country Music Television awards for a collaborative video with Sugarland and Jake Owen, “Life in a Northern Town.” They’re also working on a new album expected out in 2010 on Capitol.

Most of all, they seem grounded again.

“I think they’ve landed in a good place, and it’s just a question of cranking out the music,” said David Scarlett, senior editor of Country Weekly magazine.

On the Net:

www.littlebigtown.com/