Extended Q&A: Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town

Little Big Town is, from left, Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman and Phillip Sweet.

Country quartet Little Big Town will be the special guests tonight at Carrie Underwood’s show at the BOK Center. This is an extended Q&A with Kimberly Schlapman, one of the singers for the vocal group, from a phone interview last week from a Virginia tour stop.

Schlapman talked about touring with Underwood, the band’s rerelease of the CD “A Place to Land” and balancing work and family. Little Big Town consists of Karen Fairchild, Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook, and Phillip Sweet, and she also talked about the unusual lineup of their group.

Q: How’s the tour going? You guys just started out recently with Carrie Underwood.

A: We started in September; we’ve been out five or six weeks, I guess about five weeks with Carrie. And it’s going fantastic. We’re having a ball. Carrie’s been really great to us, and she’s given us all her lights and all. We’ve never had so many lights to use. (laughs) We actually have our own lighting guy now for the first time ’cause we have so many great lights to use onstage. And that makes a huge difference in the show, the lighting and she’s been really kind to us. It’s been great.

Q: So she’s been sharing her lights with you?

A: Um hum, yeah, which is a big deal. That doesn’t always happen; headliners don’t always share all the goodies. So she’s been really great about that and very generous with the production, so it makes a big difference for our show, too.

Q: I’ve talked to her a few times, and every time I talked to her she still kind of seems surprised that she’s famous. Do you get that vibe off of her?

A: (laughs) Yeah. She’s a doll, she’s really sweet and down to earth and really kind. We’ve had a good time out here with her.

Q: She’s always saying something like she doesn’t know why people would recognize her or something like that.

A: (laughs) I know, and she’s a superstar. But yeah I guess it’s kind of cool that she doesn’t buy into all of it, you know.

Q: There’s a lot of girl power going on with your tour, with you and singing partner Karen Fairchild  – not to forget your guys  -  but then you have Carrie Underwood as the headliner. Is that pretty interesting to have such a female presence on the tour and what kind of audiences are you getting?

A: It’s pretty awesome. We’ve done it once before with Martina McBride. We toured with her I guess a year and a half ago for a long time and so that’s the same girl power and also a killer voice. I mean, you can’t get better than the two of them for sure. Both of them – Carrie and Martina – they bring their top game every night. You know, you can watch night after night after night both of them sing and they never miss. It’s amazing.

As far as the crowds on this tour, it’s really a bit of a different crowd for us. You know, it’s the “American Idol” crowd and a wide range of ages, from little small children who watch and knew Carrie from “American Idol” all the way up to their grandmas who bring ‘em to the show. So it’s a wide range of fans, and ours are also in there. So it’s nice to see familiar faces, but it’s also been great for us to make some new fans. …

It’s very nice to have women represented so well right now in country music. There’s some just awesome singers who have taken our genre of music to another level and brought in more and more fans because of the great quality of female musicians right now in country music.

Q: I wanted to talk to you about why you re-released “A Place to Land” and what’s the story behind it and how did it tie into changing labels.

A: Well, we were on Equity Records, which is a small independent label in Nashville. We were there for about four years and had our first big hit there, “Boondocks.” And it went very well there but our contract ran out so some other labels in town were kind of courting us I guess you could say.

And we decided to sign with Capitol Records and Capitol actually acquired both of the CDs that we made at Equity, “The Road to Here” and “A Place to Land.” They acquired both of those from Equity, because when we were at Equity only one single was released off of that CD, and so when we knew that we were leaving and going to another label, we almost began to grieve that CD because we thought that we were going to have to leave it behind and start completely over with a new CD.

And when you make a CD, at least for us, we pour our absolute hearts and souls into every aspect of making the music, from writing the songs to recording to the artwork to every bit of the CD. It was really hard for us to think about leaving that CD behind after just one single. So Capitol decided to bring that with us over there and to re-release it with new artwork and some new music so that it could get out to more people, Capitol being a huge powerhouse in the music business, so that the CD could be introduced to more of the world, along with some new music and some new art.

When we found out that was going to happen, we were just over the moon, ‘cause it was going to be kind of like leaving a child behind. We so wanted the world to hear that CD and it just really hadn’t happened yet. So we just re-released it with four new songs on it, one being “Life in a Northern Town” that we did with Sugarland and Jake Owen, and then two songs that we wrote and then one that our producer, Wayne Kirkpatrick, wrote many years ago. So three studio tracks and then “Life in a Northern Town,” the original one that we did with Sugarland and Jake.

Q: Were those three studio tracks ones you did specifically for the re-release?

A: Yes. Yes. Those were not done before; they weren’t done the first time around. They were just done in the last six months actually. We wrote those two and then recorded three songs – four songs actually and we didn’t put the fourth one on the CD. The fourth one you can get off of iTunes. When you order the CD on iTunes, you get actually 17 tracks, including that one bonus. But on the one in stores, there’s 16 tracks.

So yeah, we did all of that in about the last six months, getting ready for the re-release of that CD. And we’re really, really proud of the songs that we got to add. We wrote some things that we’re really proud of.

Q: Are you working on a new album now?

A: Not yet. Not yet. We’re always brainstorming about song ideas and stuff like that. …

Q: I have to ask you, like I asked Carrie Underwood, what was it like to record with Elvis Presley?

A: Oh my gosh, that was such a thrill! Well, you know, it’s something that you can’t even dream up because who ever would’ve thought that in this day and time we could ever record with Elvis, who’s gone.

But when we were asked, we jumped at the chance. And Karen and I have been friends for 20 years, and we have been through so much together and done so many great things together and this is something we never dreamed up. (laughs)  

But it was the most amazing day. We went in the studio, we got to cut it in the studio where Elvis did his recordings on the same mike that Elvis used. And it was just chilling to stand there with headphones on and hear him sing in our ears. It was, oh my gosh, something that I will never, ever, ever forget.

I grew up – well, we all did – listening to Elvis, and at Christmastime especially, there was Jesus and there was Elvis. (laughs) So it was a huge part of our Christmas tradition.

And we got to meet the Jordanaires that day, they were at the studio, we got to talk with them and spend some time with them. And it’s just a day that will go down in the top of my memory bank and it’ll be there forever.

I have such respect for Elvis and the music that he gave us and just so happy that I was able to be a tiny little part of his music. It’s just such a great opportunity and such a big blessing.

Q: Were you excited to be asked and were you pleased with how the song came out?

A: Oh, my gosh, yes, we were so excited and we found out that Priscilla Presley had to approve everyone that went on there, which was, you know, that was like “Holy cow, wow, that’s pretty cool.” (laughs)

And we’re really happy with how it came out. Yeah, of course, it’s Elvis, so you can’t improve on that at all. We just hope to add our little taste of a little bit of Little Big Town in there. And we’re really proud of how it turned out.

Q: You have a little girl, Daisy, who’s a little over a year old.

A: Yeah, she’s almost 15 months. Yep.

Q: How do you make that work with the music business? Does she tour with you?

A: She does. She tours with me, yeah, she has her own little bunk right across from mine. And she does really well. You know how resilient kids are and how flexible they are. And you know, she doesn’t know any different; she’s only ever known this. (laughs) And she does so well out here, and of course, we have tons of people out here. It’s just a huge family and everybody helps and pitches in. And we’re fortunate that my husband can come out with us, too, so he plays Mr. Mom and is a phenomenal dad. I’m so proud of him and that he can be with us. …

She sleeps really well on the bus now and she loves it, she loves all the people out here. And Phillip who’s also in our band … he also has a little girl (Penelopi) who’s five months younger than Daisy. And they adore each other and love to play with each other. They’re best buddies.

Q: And I guess Phillip’s wife also tour along with you? So you have a whole family thing going on?

A: Yeah, she does. Yep, we have a whole family here. We moved to two buses last year, and so we have what makes up Little Big Town -Karen, Jimi, Phillip and myself – and then our spouses and babies on one bus. And then on the other bus we have our band and crew, so it was nice that we get to spread out a little bit.

Q: And Karen and Jimi are married, correct?

A: Yes, they’re married, they’re very happily married. And we all live together on this one bus.

Q: It’s like we’ve done the Little Big Town role call, and that sounds like fun for all of you to be together. It’s kind of an unusual group and you had some unrest with different labels as you were moving up in the business. Did you face a lot of pressure to change the way that your band with lined up and to pick a lead singer?

A: Yeah, we sure did, especially in the beginning. Karen and I had this idea 12 years ago, and it took us a while to put it together. For one thing, we wanted great singers, but we also wanted people that we could live with, because we spend more time with each other than we do with our blood-related family. So it’s important that we can all get along under one small little roof.

And we had a certain sound that we were looking for, so we went on the hunt for these guys. And Karen had known Jimi, they were already friends, and so we got together with Jimi. And then several months later we finally found Phillip.

In the beginning, yes, we faced a lot of pressure to pick a lead singer because this is something that had never been done in country music. Like the Eagles did it where they passed off leads, but nobody in country music had ever done it. We have found in our experience that people say they want change, but then when they really get change they’re like ‘Oh, we’ve never done it that way before.’ (laugh)

So we stuck to our guns and I’m really proud that we did that because I think that’s what makes our band really unique now. Instead of having one voice as the sound of the band, it’s really the harmony that makes up the sound of the band. So yeah, we stuck to our guns and it finally paid off for us.

Q: And you guys were really after that harmony sound? You’re compared a lot to bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles.

A: We were all into those harmony bands: Alabama and Restless Heart. And we all grew up singing harmony with our families as a matter of fact; we all have that in common. So harmony was just something that all of us always wanted to be a part of, and someone said one time that harmony’s the lead singer. We really wanted the harmony to be the focal point of the band, and I think that hopefully that’s what we’ve done.

Q: Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles were influences for you?

A: Yeah, Fleetwood Mac, the Mamas and the Papas, the Eagles, Alabama, Restless Heart, Diamond Rio, all those great harmony bands.

And we’ve been a band now for 10 years, and I think our sound, hopefully we have evolved. And I don’t want to say perfected our sound ‘cause hopefully we’ll continue to evolve. But we’ve really captured I think what we set out to do in the very beginning and the sound and the focus on the harmony and all.

Q: Did you guys do a CMT Crossroads that was actually with Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham?
A: Yes, yes. That to me personally is the highlight of our career so far. That was the most magical night. That man oozes talent and energy. And I’ll never forget being onstage with him that night; he’s just electric. And standing beside him was the most probably energized and motivated creatively I’ve ever been. I’m so grateful that he agreed do that with us and to me it’s just the highlight of our career. I didn’t want it to end.

-BAM

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