Awe sugar, sugar

Kristian Bush remembers everything about Sugarland’s first show in Baton Rouge except for the name of the venue. He may have blocked that from memory. This was 2005, when remixing country songs with thumping dance beats turned freakishly popular, and everyone in the dance hall was there to shake and sweat.

Bush and his Sugarland partner Jennifer Nettles stood like statues holding acoustic guitars as they were announced as the night’s entertainment. When the music cut off abruptly, the crowd stopped dancing and stared.

“The only thing I could hear was the feedback on the mic,” Bush says of that eerie silence. “The rest of the night was spent sitting in our minivan in the parking lot watching people get into fights.”

Sugarland’s next appearance in Baton Rouge ought to go over much differently when the Grammy-winning crossover country duo brings hits from #1 album The Incredible Machine to Tiger Stadium for a co-headlining set at Bayou Country Superfest.

“There’s an excitement to stadium shows that you can’t fake anywhere else,” Bush says. “After playing stadiums with Kenny [Chesney], we have a blood lust for it.”

Bush grew up in Dolly Parton country in east Tennessee, but while studying violin at the University of Tennessee, he caught onto college rock radio and delved into R.E.M., the Smiths and the Replacements. It is this blend—Dolly Parton and Paul Westerberg, Don Henley and Michael Stipe—that forms the foundation of his band’s incredible success.

“College radio pried open my mind just enough to get me interested in those artists as writers,” Bush says. “The deejays back then didn’t backtrack the songs, so for a while I had no idea who the bands were I was hearing. It was all about those melodies.”

Bush spent years as a producer, working with Chuck Brodsky and Shawn Mullins, among others. But he says he owes his recent commercial success to a hardworking record label and the creative partnership he has with Nettles.

“We’re both very excitable, and we feed off each other,” Bush says. “There’s trust and respect there and a freedom to be vulnerable and share ideas.”

Even with a relentless tour schedule in support of The Incredible Machine, Bush and Nettles anticipate great things to go down this month in Tiger Stadium.

“There’s nothing like it,” Bush says. “During the show, for a brief time, everyone is connected. You don’t get that feeling very often.”

Sugarland performs live at Bayou Country Superfest May 28. sugarlandmusic.com