Entertainment_Weekly_Issue_1456_March_10_2017

36 EW.COM MARCH 10, 2017

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Passion fruit margaritas
forFAIRCHILD and
SCHLAPMAN, tequila forSWEET,
bourbon forWESTBROOK

Your cover of Katy Perry’s
“Teenage Dream” at the
Grammys was phenomenal.
Whose idea was that?
KAREN FAIRCHILDThe pro-
ducers were thinking about us

singing an intro for Katy. I always
thought it would be beautiful if
it were almost folksy and soulful,
so we combined those ideas
together and slowed it down.

So were you Team Adele or
Te a m B eyo n c é?
KIMBERLY SCHLAPMAN We
love them both so much.
FAIRCHILD I don’t know if we

played a record more in our
dressing room this year than we
didLemonade. That was our
get-hype, get-going music. And
I don’t think there was a kinder
tribute than what Adele did.

Where do you fall when it comes
to the Grammys adequately
honoring the country genre?

FAIRCHILDThe Grammys have
always been good to us. I know in
past years that maybe some of
the country community didn’t feel
like it got its due. But we have a

voice in all of music. We have a

following that is worldwide. Our

tickets just went on sale for Royal

Albert Hall in London, and it looks

like we’ll be sold out. It’s crazy.

Speaking of which, “Girl Crush”

now has more than 69 million

views on YouTube.

SCHLAPMAN Holy cow! Oh

my stars!

PHILLIP SWEET That’s crazy.

I had no idea.

JIMI WESTBROOK Cheers to

that! [Everyone toasts.]

FAIRCHILD Get your gimlet

up! Giblet?

SCHLAPMAN Giblet? That’s in

chicken.

FAIRCHILD What’s a gimlet?

SWEET Isn’t that a drink?

There’s a vodka gimlet with lime

or a gin gimlet with lime.

SCHLAPMAN Or you can do a

chicken giblet. You can fry them

and they’re pretty good.

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R

OUND

Strawberry-infused

vodka forSCHLAPMAN, more

margaritas and tequila

forFAIRCHILD and

SWEET, more bourbon

forWESTBROOK

“Girl Crush” was such an amaz-

ing success story: winning two

majorGrammys,crossingover

to the Hot 100. What did you

learn from the experience?

WESTBROOK The unbelievable

beauty of the way that song

was written, it reinforced with

us to just go with our gut. That’s

the lesson this band has held

on to and learned.

FAIRCHILD At the time, a 6/8

ballad beat in country music

should not have worked.

SWEET It was against the odds.

FAIRCHILDLook back at the

songs that made country great:

“He Stopped Loving Her Today,”

“Angel Flying Too Close to the

Ground,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the

Rain,” “When I Call Your Name”...

We’re talking about heartache

songs. Thank the good Lord

above that we had a shot of put-

ting “Girl Crush” out on radio and

now we’re hearing more ballads

on radio. I’m not going to say we

are responsible for that, but I

know that every artist in Nashville

has a “Girl Crush” on their record,

a song they love so much that

they are so passionate about.

I hope the song was a stepping-

stone for getting back to that.

Let’s talk about your new album,

The Breaker. Is it true that you

recorded it in a church?

FAIRCHILDWell, it’s [music pro-

ducer] Jay Joyce’s studio in East

Nashville. I don’t know if he believes

in God, but he owns a church.

SCHLAPMAN We recorded

it in the sanctuary, which has a

high ceiling. It has incredible

Imagine if a game-changing email from Taylor Swift went to

spam. Little Big Town can, because the pop princess wrote one

such message and sent it to Phillip Sweet, the quartet’s least

reliable member when it comes to timely internet replies. “He’s

a horrible responder,” says Karen Fairchild, 47, glancing fondly

at Sweet, at 42 the baby of the band: “I love you, but you are.”

Fortunately, Sweet eventually did check his mail and saw

the offer to record the Swift-penned break-up ballad “Better

Man”; the song went on to become the group’s third chart-

topping single. “It opened up a brand-new audience for us,” says

47-year-old Kimberly Schlapman. Over very potent fruity

cocktails at Catch LA in West Hollywood, we asked the longtime

friends and musical soul mates—who also include Jimi West-

brook, 46, Fairchild’s husband for more than a decade—to talk

about their new album,The Breaker, their recent Grammys

appearance, and being totally, ahem, synced up.

acoustics. And since it’s a huge

room, we can all be together

and make eye contact. Jay is in

the middle, like the pastor.

What were your hopes for the

album going in?

SWEET It evolved as the

process went on. A lot of times

there’s a song that feels like

the cornerstone of the record.

That happened early on in

the process for this. Some amaz-

ing writers sent us “Free,” and

that’s a sentiment that we really

wanted to start with—about the

love in your life, that the things

that matter are your family.

Which song do you think will be

the crowd-pleaser?

SWEET There’s one called “Happy

People” that kicks off the record,

about how you can’t [rely on]

someone else to make you feel

happy. It’s a hopeful song, and

it’s really perfect for where the

world is right now. It seems like

we’re in a gigantic swirl of chaos.

Sounds like you just got a little

political there.

FAIRCHILD It depends on

what you mean by political. If

tolerance and kindness and

acceptance and love are politi-

cal, then I guess we’re political.

SCHLAPMAN“Better Man” is a

crowd-pleaser. The audience has

expanded for that because it’s

from Taylor Swift—all of her fans

want to know, “What? She wrote a

song and a country band cut it?”