Little Big Town channels '70s with new artistic direction
MUSIC: Little Big Town starts new creative direction with 'A Place to Land' cover art
09:42 AM CST on Monday, November 5, 2007
By MARIO TARRADELL / The Dallas Morning News
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The members of Little Big Town remember the record album. Heck, the quartet is even trying to persuade its label, Nashville's Equity Music Group, to release the new A Place to Land on vinyl.
"That album cover looks like it should be vinyl," singer Karen Fairchild, 38, says by phone from a tour stop in Sacramento, Calif.
With help from fellow bandmates Phillip Sweet, Kimberly Roads Schlapman and Jimi Westbrook, who's also her husband, Ms. Fairchild art-directed the packaging of A Place to Land. That cover, drenched in rich sepia tones, showcases the members surrounded by vintage furniture as they pose in front of an old shack. The hippie-chic lettering is very '70s. Think classic Grateful Dead LPs.
"We wanted to do something really creative," Ms. Fairchild says. "We found a guy in Nashville who is a graphic designer, and we talked to him. We wanted to show some growth, move in a new direction even with the art. He totally got it."
The look of A Place to Land, which is in stores Tuesday, matches the sound. Buoyed by the breakthrough success of 2005's The Road to Here, a million-selling disc that spawned four country hits and received a slew of industry award nominations, LBT decided to delve further into its Fleetwood Mac and Eagles influences. The result is an inspired batch of a dozen songs that retain a country flavor while clearly tapping into a bold, tuneful mixture of So-Cal pop and Southern rock. And at every turn you get that exquisite four-part harmony interplay.
A Place to Land works from beginning to end. There's a musical, even lyrical thread that ties the opener, the Mac-informed "Fine Line" to the closer, the Eagles-heavy "Fury," and everything in between. That was intentional.
"It was to make a collection of songs that are from a certain period of time," she says. "You don't want to fast-forward because you are going to miss a moment. We wanted to make those kinds of records. One song leads into another. I love The Road to Here, but A Place to Land reflects more of the intensity of the band.
"Is this the death of the record? That makes me really sad. I understand that it could be heading that way. But I like hearing somebody hash it out and write top to bottom what they were thinking at that moment."
Ms. Fairchild and her musical pals are living in the moment. That means nurturing their creativity no matter where it takes them. These band members will no longer compromise. They did enough of that. Having endured two botched major-label experiences β first a fruitless deal with Mercury Records Nashville, then a Sony-Monument contract that produced the paltry 2002 debut, Little Big Town βthe group won't buckle again.
"When that record came out, I knew it wasn't a true representation of the band," Ms. Fairchild says of the artistic and commercial dud that was Little Big Town. "But you kind of don't know you're compromising so much when you're in the moment. It took us a while to figure out what went wrong. The struggles and the failures made us so protective about what we do now, the record covers, the logos. We want to make sure we can go to sleep at night."
With grand musical changes came equally significant personal alterations. Ms. Roads' first husband died of a heart attack the same year The Road to Here was released. She is now remarried and recently gave birth to a daughter. Mr. Sweet recently wed and will be a daddy by the end of this year. Plus, Ms. Fairchild exchanged nuptial vows with Mr. Westbrook in May 2006.
Is married life easier or harder when you're in the same band?
"Not to say that we don't butt heads, but the funny thing is we butt heads over creative things, songwriting, lyrics, something in the studio," she says. "We're both so stubborn. Now there is this safety net with each other. I absolutely love that fact that I get to enjoy this journey with him.
"It's so cool to sing in front of a crowd at an awards show and look over and see Alan Jackson and Sheryl Crow, people you respect so much, and see it and enjoy it together. We get along really well, and when we don't we go to the back of the bus and say nothing. He's my soul mate. I'm not always easy to understand. We're both insecure artists, so that raises some problems. But aren't all artists insecure?"
There isn't an insecure note in A Place to Land. Ms. Fairchild and her Little Big Town family know exactly what they're doing.
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