It’s safe to say that back in 2012, Jimi Westbrook and Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town had no idea how the success of “Pontoon” was about to change their lives.
Watch Little Big Town Get Invited to Join the Grand Ole Opry by Reba McEntire
“It’s been incredible,” Westbrook tells Billboard. “It’s everything we’ve been working for all these years,” he says of the last 24 months, which has seen a trio of CMA and ACM Awards, a Grammy, and a Platinum-selling single (“Pontoon”) and album (Tornado).
Fellow member — and wife — Karen Fairchild admits the success of the single and the Tornado album has been beyond their wildest dreams. “I don’t know if we would have believed it,” she says. “We believe in ourselves, but if you would have told us what was about to happen, I think we would have just had our mouths on the floor like, ‘What, really?'”
And things keep getting better. Tuesday’s release of Pain Killer offers fans those distinct, one-of-a-kind harmonies, albeit with a few differences from past projects. For starters, while there are some tracks that were written by the group as a whole, Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman also wrote apart from Westbrook and Phillip Sweet on a few songs for the album. No trouble in paradise, Westbrook insists — they just wanted to keep things fresh.
“We wanted to change things up a little, and the opportunities kind of presented themselves,” he said. “The girls wrote with the ‘Love Junkies,’ as they have named their selves — Hillary, Liz, and Lori — and we just kind of went with it. We wrote with Jeremy Spillman and Ryan Tyndell on the road — all four of us, but there were a couple of times where we made it a guys’ day. Actually, two of those songs — ‘Silver and Gold’ as well as ‘Faster Gun’ — made the record. It was just something to shake things up a little bit, and put ourselves in a different place.”
Little Big Town’s Little Secret: Natalie Hemby & Barry Dean on Writing Country Hits
The aforementioned songs are as diametrically opposite from each other as can be, with “Faster Gun” ranking as one of the edgier songs the band has cut. “It definitely feels different than anything we’ve ever done before,” says Westbrook (Karen and Kimberly call it “the testosterone fest”).
“The funny thing was that ‘Faster Gun’ and ‘Silver and Gold’ were both written on the same day at the studio,” Westbrook says. “The girls wrote upstairs with Jay Joyce and Jedd Hughes, and Phillip and I, along with Jeremy and Ryan, went down to the basement. We were just hanging out having a good time, being free and creative, and not doing anything other than what we felt the song called for. We came upstairs to angels singing in this beautiful moment of ‘Silver and Gold.’ We laughed at just how different the moments were. I love that there’s that kind of variety on this record.”
Pain Killer — led by the success of lead single “Day Drinking,” currently No. 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart — is the second straight Little Big Town release produced by Jay Joyce.
What does Joyce bring to the table? “Spontaneity,” Fairchild says without hesitation. “Going with the way things make you feel and not perfection. He pushes and we push him — he’s worked with some incredible vocalists, but we were the first harmony band he’d ever worked with. I think that discovery process led us to new things on Tornado, and Pain Killer took it to the next level. I’m most proud of the band’s ability to let ourselves evolve, and not to be afraid of that. We reminded ourselves that this is music, and we don’t have to define it so harshly all the time. We could let it move and be what it is.”
Reba McEntire: ‘Pray for Peace’ Behind the Scenes
The release of Pain Killer is not the only thing the foursome is excited about. This past weekend, the reigning CMA Vocal Group of the Year became members of the Grand Ole Opry. Being asked by Reba McEntire to join the show’s cast on Oct. 3 definitely qualified as a moment to remember, says Fairchild.
“It was like a dream. We were on stage singing ‘Pontoon’ and I remember thinking, ‘That was a great night at the Grand Ole Opry. What a great crowd.’ Then I hear in my in-ear monitors someone singing an ad-lib, and I remember thinking, ‘Who’s singing?’ Then I heard her again and I thought, ‘That’s Reba’s voice.’ So I look over, and there she is coming in all of her glory.”
The invitation — and the membership — is something she does not take lightly. “We are so honored to be asked to join. We have such a great reverence for the tradition and the heritage of country music. We just hope we can live up to this honor. It’s a big one.”