In 2024, Little Big Town celebrated its 25th anniversary together. And when it came time to return to the studio to make It’s a Dying Art, their first new album since hitting that milestone, Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbrook felt a renewed sense of purpose.
“We felt like we should turn the page a bit and see what the next chapter could become,” Fairchild says of recording the band’s 12th studio album, out Friday (Aug. 28) on MCA Nashville. “We don’t really have any boundaries on us at the moment from anybody saying, ‘You need to make this kind of music.’ We definitely just did whatever we wanted to do.”
“There was a new excitement that we hadn’t felt in a while,” agrees Fairchild’s husband, Westbrook, during a Zoom interview from their Nashville home.
That excitement also came from shaking up the process a little. For their first studio album since 2022’s Mr. Sun, the quartet— who have scored such hits as “Pontoon,” “Girl Crush,” “Day Drinking” and “Better Man” — turned to Gena Johnson, who had worked with Jason Isbell and Dolly Parton, to produce the set with Fairchild. Isbell also joined in, contributing guitar to “The Door,” while longtime friend Kelsea Ballerini sings on “Closing Time” and Ashley Monroe collaborates on “Sucker for a Sad Song.”
While there are a few good-time songs on the set, like the fun, chipper “Crickets,” much of the album plumbs the depths of relationships and the highs and the lows. Additionally, the first song released, “Hey There Sunshine,” addressed mental health.
After performing on Today Sept. 1 as part of Today’s Citi Concert Series, the band starts the For the Art of It tour Sept. 24 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Below, Fairchild and Westbrook talked about the making of the album, playing with their famous friends and where they see themselves in 25 years.
Did you approach this album any differently than you did the previous 11?
Westbrook: I think it was different in a lot of ways, but not. The way it started was a little different. We didn’t have as a whole a group of songs that we were going, “This is what this record’s going to be like.” Not that we do that a lot, but sometimes we’ve had more of an idea of a number of songs.
Fairchild: I think maybe the difference was being even choosier about songs, pickier about songs. We always are. We just we were either writing ones that we felt like were really holding the standard high, and then also finding songs that were blowing our minds. And then that also sets the bar really high.
Westbrook: And then working with Gena behind the board and the vocal sounds that she gets was so inspiring and a definitely a catalyst for the spirit of this record. The sonic picture, she’s just so great at it, and that was exciting as the process started unfolding. The band that was playing that was a kind of an assembled group of players that we hadn’t played together with as a whole that were so great and vibey. I think sonically all of that stuff together really was kind of propelling things forward in a lot of ways.
Karen, you and Gena had met when you were working on Shelby Lynne’s album. How was the decision made that you two were going to produce the album?
Fairchild: I just knew she would be an incredible fit for the band, and we didn’t know if it would be production, co-production or just engineering and mixing the record. We just knew that she needed to be involved, and then we would let it kind of define itself as we were creating music.
Westbrook: A Christmas song with Gena was the first time that we worked with her as a band, “The Innkeeper” that was added to our Christmas record. We just hit it off, and she’s so encouraging, and such a great spirit. We thought, “Oh, this this could be really fun.”
Karen, obviously you were there as co-producer, but did Gena also bring a different energy than a male producer?
Fairchild: I think so. I do think that a female brings an energy of nurturing. There is a nurturing spirit there. Maybe not for all women, but definitely with Gena. But she also is a straight shooter. There’s no bulls–t with her. She’s gonna say the truth, but there is a nurturing part of her and an openness to being creative and to not having to do it her way that I like a lot. I know you can find that in either gender.
There’s also there’s different level of sonics that she brought in and then you were also working with different musicians, which you had mentioned, Jimmy. You guys just celebrated 25 years together. Did you feel like this was almost a fresh start with some fresh energy coming in?
Westbrook: Yeah, absolutely.
Fairchild: It felt like we should turn the page a bit and see what the next chapter could become. We don’t really have any boundaries on us at the moment from anybody saying, “Well, you need to make this kind of music.” We definitely just did whatever we wanted to do.
Westbrook: We’ve experienced this in the past in making records where you don’t have to force anything, and it just starts happening and revealing itself, and I feel like we felt that on even the first couple of things that we cut. There was a new excitement that we hadn’t felt in a while. There’s an energy you feel when that starts happening that you start going, “Oh, man, I know this feeling!” It’s how the music is making us feel as a band. That started happening early on. You’re just hanging on and not wanting to define it to soon or say anything, but it’s like, “Isn’t this fun!”
The first song we heard from the new album was “Hey There Sunshine” at the Academy of Country Music Awards. The deeply emotional song addresses coming out of a long dark period, whether from depression or illness or other circumstances. How did that song come to you?
Fairchild: Cary Barlowe, [songwriter] Hillary Lindsey’s partner, sent that song over. He and Jimmy are really close.
Westbrook: He played it for me when we came in from hunting one day. I was floored, and it’s one of those where you’re inside going, “How do I get this song?” So, I called him back later and [went] “What is going on with that song?” They were trying to find a home for it and had already been shopping it so there was a process going on, so we just kind of moved on from it. That was probably three years or four years ago.
Fairchild: Three years ago, I had a long talk with Hillary about it and just said, “You deserve Adele or Miley or Pink to cut the song. If it doesn’t happen, we would love to have it.” That’s just the kind of friends that we are. It’s such a special song, but songs find their way to the people they’re supposed to be with sometimes.
Westbrook: That song is why you make music.
Fairchild: We need more of that in life these days and that’s why we wanted to lead with that message. It felt very important living in a very divided time and culture with not a lot of peace it seems. That message of the beacon of healing and hope and finding your way out of a bad spot is an important message to the band. So that’s why it needed to be first.
This is not new for you, but the album concentrates heavily on relationships in a fearless way, especially on bad relationships on songs like “The Door,” where the person leaves, and “The Idea,” where the person stays, no matter how unhappy the relationship is.
Fairchild: “The Door” kills me because [of the line] “Lord, help me make it to the door.” I just didn’t expect that, as I was listening for the very first time, and it just hit me so hard. That is the courage it takes to do any big decision like that in your life. It takes actually getting up and going towards the door, and I thought that was so brilliant the way they wrote that.
How did you get Jason Isbell on the track?
Fairchild: He and Gena are best friends, and they’ve made a bunch of records together. We’ve known Jason casually for years. He’s one of the most gifted, prolific writers, of our generation. So, we knew that he was going to have to be on board with the song or he probably wouldn’t play on the record. Gena sent it to him, and he was like, “Yeah, I would love to do it.” It was just magic to be in the studio singing while he’s playing and making art together. Art that can’t be duplicated by a computer or anything. It’s just going to be what happens in the moment, and it was very special.
The title track is about love and relationships being a dying art, but the title speaks on a much broader level given the influx of AI. Do you feel like the way you make music is a dying art?
Fairchild: I think it’s coming back. I think it’s going to come back even more to an analog sensibility because of the way things are going. People that care about preserving art are going to get back to the more roots approach of things. Not to say that we’re not going to use computers. Obviously, the digital phase of music has been genius for being able to make music anywhere. It’s just that when you compare a vocal that AI can generate to when you hear a human vocal full of emotion and texture and tone and life lived is way different. It’s probably going to get harder and harder to tell, but you can tell.
Westbrook: How cool would it be that all of this causes us to enjoy imperfection more? In a lot of ways in our world, we were kind of losing touch with some things that were really important between human-to-human contact, and I think at some point, we’re all going to turn around and go, “You know what? I miss that.”
Your friend Kelsea Ballerini joins you for “Closing Time.” You invited her to join the Grand Ole Opry, you’ve performed together. What makes that relationship so special?
Fairchild: We have a great, great connection. I’m a good bit older than her, but we just get along really well. We love being creative together. I can be a sounding board for her sometimes and she can be for me too. I played her “The Idea” one night and “Hey There Sunshine” in her kitchen and we were just drinking wine, and she played me a couple of things she was working on.
We wrote [“Closing Time”] back when we were writing for her records, and it was a song that just kept sticking around in our little group chat of Jessie Jo Dillon, Kelsea, Alyssa [Vanderheym] and Hillary [Lindsey]. Then [Jessie Jo] to me one day, “Do you think we should play “Closing Time” for the band? It’s such a good song.” Kelsea was so excited that we were going to cut it. I told her about Jason Isbell [being on “The Door”], and she was like, “Well, I want to be on the record!” She’s just a sweet, talented girl.
Do all four of you have to agree to do a song?
Fairchild: Yeah, we always make records agreeing on all the songs or it doesn’t go on a record because it just doesn’t feel right when you talk somebody into something when they’re not feeling it.
What’s your relationship with country radio now?
Fairchild: I don’t know if we have one. [Laughs.] Yeah, I mean our recurring records still play. Our catalog plays. It’s not something that we think about. I would love to see them play something, especially for the writers. The writers’ bread and butter comes from not just streaming but performance royalties. Someday that’s going to have to be fixed or we’re going to lose our songwriting community. People have to share the wealth.
It feels like you’re making the records you want to make, and that’s very liberating. No one is saying to you, “We don’t hear a single.”
Fairchild: Right. Whether it’s a right or wrong philosophy these days, they’re watching numbers and activity and data and seeing if something pops off. The thing that I love about Katie McCartney and Mike Harris at MCA is that they are believers in this record having its time, not being worried about, do we want to have a great first week? Everybody wants a great first week, but we also don’t think that it’s going to have to hold its hat just on that first week because the record has a lot of depth.
I was just looking at Tyler, the Creator and he was talking about Chromatica, and he was like a year and a half in, “I’m still promoting it, just like it’s brand new. Why do I have to stop?” I was like, “Exactly, that is the point.”
Looking way ahead another 25 years, do you still see yourselves on the road in 2061?
Westbrook: I don’t think so.
Fairchild: Probably not. But I did just see Mick Jagger in an interview last night.
Westbrook: I saw Jagger when we opened for the Eagles in London, and we came in early and saw The Rolling Stones play the night before. That man put on a show.
So I’m going to ask again. Are we going to still see you on the road in 2061?
Fairchild: I mean, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.
Westbrook: I may be in the woods. No, we love performing. There’s still nothing like that connection. That would be hard for us to give up altogether.
What is still on your to-do list?
Fairchild: There’s always something around the bend that sometimes you can’t even dream it up. We’ve been incredibly blessed in our career to collaborate with so many of our icons and people that we admire. And Springsteen, McCartney. While we’re talking about them all, yeah, why not?