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Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman reflected on “the closest time,” the group came to breaking up.
Fairchild and Schlapman — part of Little Big Town with bandmates Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet — sat down with Bobby Bones on a new episode of The BobbyCast that premiered on Tuesday (July 21). During the conversation, Bobby asked the two artists whether the band ever got close to breaking up, and Schlapman replied, “after my husband died, I kinda wanted to quit.”
“That was the closest time, I think, was probably after he passed,” Fairchild agreed.
Schlapman unexpectedly lost her husband, Steven Roads, after he suffered a heart attack in April 2005. She went on to marry husband Stephen Schlapman in 2006 (last year, she revealed a secret about their wedding they kept for 20 years); however, the grief after losing Roads made her feel “like a zombie,” she said on the podcast.
“We weren’t very successful at that point,” Schlapman said in a clip from The BobbyCast that was shared on Instagram. “That was before we had a hit. So, we were literally driving ourselves around in a van. I think we had moved from a minivan to a 15-passenger van at that point. …And we were doing a radio tour because we had put out ‘Boondocks,’ (or) we were about to put out ‘Boondocks.’
“I felt obligated to them [her bandmates] because if I stop, that means their three lives stop, and that’s not fair,” Schlapman continued. “I remember driving up the Pacific Coast Highway a few weeks afterwards. And I was just laid out in the back crying. ...It’s a beautiful picture of friendship, what they did for me. They were my family.”
Now, the members of Little Big Town are looking ahead to the release of their new studio record, It’s A Dying Art. The 13-track project includes previously-released “Hey There Sunshine,” “Over And Over” and “Sucker For A Sad Song” with Ashley Monroe. The band shared that “this album was made in the middle of real life — grief, hope, and everything love costs and gives us. It’s a reminder to hold on. We can’t let love be a dying art.”
1. Intro
2. Sucker For A Sad Song (with Ashley Monroe)
3. The Door (with Jason Isbell)
4. Dying Art
5. Hey There Sunshine
6. Over And Over
7. The Idea
8. We Could Have It All
9. Crickets
10. Closing Time (with Kelsea Ballerini)
11. Long Way To Your Heart
12. It's Coming Around
13. Jet Plane
“That song is such a gift,” Schlapman said, in part, of “Hey There Sunshine” in an interview with iHeartCountry earlier this year. The conversation, in which Schlapman spoke about her mother’s Parkinson’s journey and the importance of caregiving, took place prior to Little Big Town’s album announcement. “I think the timing of it is so important right now because the world just needs to be lifted up and caregivers need to be lifted up. …And I'm just happy. I think music is healing. We all know that and I hope that that song gives hope and encouragement to people everywhere.”
During the new episode of The BobbyCast, Fairchild and Schlapman spoke about “nearly breaking up, getting dropped, losing their tour bus and navigating a death within the band. They also discuss whether this could be their final album, performing at Alan Jackson’s last show and learning to feel comfortable with success. Plus, Karen calls out Bobby and shares how she accidentally offended Luke Bryan,” the episode’s description reads. Find the full episode on iHeartRadio here.
