Sugarland Channels the '80s

Sugarland photo by Kate Powers, courtesy of Mercury Records Nashville.

Feb. 27, 2009 — Sugarland’s version of the 1985 Dream Academy single "Life In A Northern Town" has them nominated, along with Jake Owen and Little Big Town, for an Academy of Country Music Award, but Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush dusted off another song from ‘85 for inspiration for their new single, "It Happens."

"Anything ‘80s is alright with me," Kristian says.

For "It Happens," the groove harkens back to the one-hit wonder Katrina & The Waves, whose ultra-happy "Walking On Sunshine" is packaged on just about every 1980s hits compilation known to man. Sugarland intended "Happens" as a "Sunshine"-like tonic for negative circumstances.

"Sometimes when you just have one of those days where you wake up late and you walk into the office and you’re all disheveled and you’re doing the walk of shame" is how Jennifer describes it. "Your heel breaks as you’re walking in and you borrow your neighbor’s car and you have a car wreck — it’s like ‘Really? What could happen next?’ It’s one of those days, and sometimes it just happens. You just have to let it roll off your back."

Sugarland has lots of its days for 2009 mapped out already, thanks to a tour schedule that had to be a bit of a Rubik’s cube for the duo’s booking agent. Kristian and Jennifer are already doing a dozen stadium shows on Kenny Chesney’s Sun City Carnival Tour and playing 21 dates with Keith Urban. In the middle of that, they’ve pieced together another leg of their Love On The Inside Tour that kicks off April 10 outside Atlanta and winds up Oct. 2 in West Springfield, Mass.

Further complicating matters, they’ve set up a mix-and-match list of opening acts, with various shows featuring one or two of four different performers: Billy Currington, Jake Owen and AAA artists Matt Nathanson and Eric Hutchinson.

To top it all off, Sugarland’s signed on to participate in the April 6 taping of a CBS special celebrating George Strait as the ACM’s Artist of the Decade. The show will be shot in Las Vegas, one day after the "44th Annual ACM Awards", with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Toby Keith, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban, among others.