'I said, 'You all are not going to cut this, but you all just have to hear it because we love it so much,' ' said Liz Rose, who co-wrote many of Taylor Swift's biggest hits. 'At a certain point, we had to let (the pressure) go and push through (the frustration) and get to this one,' Sweet said. The friends sat around a table at their record label group Universal Music Group Nashville, eating tuna salads reliving the road to 'Pain Killer.' 'All the way around, more sounds, more layers, more complexity, some songs are more simple, some are more fun, some are harder in your face, braver, more provocative,' she said. The songs have an edge, often with a drive or twist that Schlapman said, 'are the best we've ever been afforded.'įairchild said it's a continuation of 'Tornado,' the home to the group's Grammy-winning hit 'Pontoon.' But more. Little Big Town's famous four-part harmonies are still there, just used in different ways.

Congratulations and thank you described 'Pain Killer' as ''70s Jerry Reed-inspired country funk.' In a fall jam-packed with album releases, Little Big Town's 'Pain Killer,' out Tuesday, is what happens when a group shelves its fear, reimagines its sound and still tends to its musical roots.įellow country singer Blake Shelton tweeted the album would be 'one of the most important albums in country music history. 'I thought, 'What are we doing?' … There's a lot of humanity in this room right now.' 'We had written for months, but we got in there and we were wrestling certain songs to the ground,' Fairchild said. 'It was a false standard I was holding, but we shouldn't have expected anything to fall together.' 'Sometimes I think if something wasn't coming together as fluidly as the last album, I'd get frustrated,' Sweet said. Before long, members were second-guessing themselves in what Westbrook called an 'unspoken struggle.' When 'Pain Killer' materialized at a slower pace, they all felt the pressure.

Their last, 'Tornado,' was completed in three weeks and sold more than a million copies. 'Pain Killer' is the second album they have made with producer Jay Joyce. The frustration was a new feeling for the band that's been together for the past 15 years. This go around, Karen Fairchild and husband Jimi Westbrook, Kimberly Schlapman and Phillip Sweet said they creatively bled for the music. But the artistic satisfaction came at a price. With the release of edgy new album 'Pain Killer,' members of Little Big Town humbly admit their songs made it onto their own play lists. As stressful as the studio time was, the members have treasured memories of the songwriting sessions that produced many of the songs on the album.

Big rich town song album