Kristian Bush
I believe the biggest challenge is just getting the courage to try something different or new. Try to forget the stereotype in your mind. Yoga is for everyone - children, athletes, moms, dads, accountants, truck drivers, even country stars.Collection: Courage
The first time I toured the U.K. was in the early '90s with Billy Pilgrim, so I know how much the people there love music.
You find your limits by going out and trying. We're just like anybody else in any other job. You just can't work 90 hour weeks. You can't do it. We can't sing seven days a week.
Each kind of generation of bands forgets how they got here. Waylon Jennings came out and they're like, 'That's not Patsy Cline.' And everyone panicked, like, 'I don't know what happened to country music, but this isn't it.'
I spent 25 years clearly understanding that I'm not gonna meet Bono or the Edge. But then it happened at the Grammys when we were all backstage and I just about fell out of my shoes.
I come from a food family, so you would think that I would be great at making baked beans or something, but I'm not.
I try to spend a lot of time thinking of what it is I want to say, and how I want to say it. Mainly because I know what it's like as a fan to hear music that is just exactly what I needed.
As soon as I saw tattoos as a way to tell your story, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I totally get it.' So I got my first tattoo a couple of years ago, and it's the word 'hope' on my left arm. It has a couple of dots at the end for each of my kids.
I've tried to start my kids on 'Doctor Who,' but they're just not there yet. Someone had given me these TARDIS stick-em notes, so I gave them to Tucker, and he finally put them all over his locker. I'm like, 'You're the coolest fifth grader, ever!'
I have always heard that uber-successful people who write books about how to become uber-successful all have one thing in common: They all meditate every day. I consider yoga my meditation.
I don't remember consciously not being able to play an instrument. It's been kind of like a language for me.
With Sugarland, it never felt like we were finished telling our story.
My kids don't listen to me when I preach at them. But if I tell them a story they can pull something from, that matters.
There's a social piece to what's going on in the Sugarland world, but we've never been a band that's political, and I maintain that.
I'm not necessarily in a vocation where I'm at risk; it's not like I'm a police officer. I'm a musician, so when I leave home, my family expects me to come back.
You do things for your kids you won't do for yourself.
It's a very sad thing to do, to divorce.
Sugarland was a band we started to try to make things better. It was in the aftermath of 9-11; it was in the aftermath of my mother dying... there was a lot of weird stuff that had gone on that made you want to start something good.
You will do things in private and sing in private and make choices in private that you wouldn't make if you were observed.
Music is supposed to make you less lonely - that's the whole idea.
I believe that melody is such a lost part of music and country music. People are either scared of it or not using all the colors that are available.
I love making music, but I also love making music that's on the radio. In some circles, that is considered less artistic. And I've always tried to resist those people that say the two can't exist at the same time.
When I got my record deal at Atlantic, at the time, 'indie' wasn't a style of music: it was a kind of label. And I think, eventually, the bands that ended up on those labels began to be branded as 'indie bands,' and then it became a genre.
It's hard not to go back and look at my songwriting catalog and go, 'Look, there are 600 to 700 songs here.'
There's an identity thing that goes on where you spend so much time caring for your child that, after a year or so, you have to shake it off and go, 'Who am I?'
As a promoter, of course, you'd really want the people who pay for the tickets to come into your venue to really be even more connected with the band.
I love writing music for film and TV, but putting it into a video game is twice as fun because it needs to be repeatable and joyous.
The most inspiring thing as an artist is when someone says, 'I believe in you'; sometimes that works even better than Grammys.
It's a great place to be as an artist: if you confuse your label, you're doing your job.
My voice has a lot of character and kind of doesn't sound like a lot of people's.
I've always tried to put a little message in my music.
There is a misconception that I've experienced in my life about people that live in the South. I got sent away to school in Connecticut in the late Eighties, and kids were honestly asking me, 'Do people there wear shoes?'
I always tell people that it's so much harder to make a happy song than a sad one.
My father was an officer in the Army, and my grandfather served in World War II, and I am so proud of their service. I'll always do whatever I can to support our troops.
I get intimidated by famous people. When I'm around them and they look at me like I belong, I'm like, 'Are you nuts? You're freakin' famous!' Whether it's Elmo or a Beatle or Vince Gill, it's humbling to be in a room with these folks.
Billy Pilgrim music is very emotional. It's one part the craft we learned from people like the Indigo Girls and R.E.M., and one part the Tom Waits craft, where you're trying to create a moment.
Music doesn't need to be perfect, but you'll know when it's right.Collection: Perfect
You can find me in the melodies, the chord progressions, the song style and structure. The lyrical places you fine me most are in the lyrics that 'show' more than 'tell.' I like to describe what the listener is seeing and let them make up the middle rather than telling them.Collection: Song
My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable. ...so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song.Collection: Song
One of the things that defines a country song for me is that it's honest. It's not putting on a tuxedo to go eat at the Burger King. It's about a song being emotionally true to itself.Collection: Country