The first song Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush wrote when they decided to start making music again as Sugarland, was their latest single, “Still the Same.”  The duo says it wasn’t really that hard to write because they were basically living the song.  As Jennifer explains, “We just walked in the room and said, alright, where do we start?  And that’s the first line of the song.”

From there, Kristian says, “We just kind of volleyed back and forth and we were just like, well, I guess you just write what you know.  Well what do we know?  Well we know we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Although Jennifer and Kristian were writing “Still the Same” from their perspective, they wanted to make sure that it would resonate with their fans as well.  “Yes, we were talking about our specific experience,” says Jennifer, “but we also were aware that hey, what if you were just somebody listening to this song and you weren’t the uber-fan that knew our whole story?  Can you like the song without knowing our story?”

“Still the Same” is the first release off Sugarland’s new album, which they’ll be releasing later this year.

Sugarland – inspiration for Still the Same  :55

Kristian Bush – “We were in it.”

Jennifer Nettles – “Yeah, it is one of the more present songs, I think, because we just walked in the room and said, alright, where do we start?  And that’s the first line of the song.”

Kristian – “First line of the song, and then the second line of the song happened right after the first line of the song and we just kind of volleyed back and forth and we were just like, well, I guess you just write what you know.  Well what do we know?  Well we know we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Jennifer – “And it was also this moment for us, too, to be like, ‘Okay, let’s talk about the white elephant in the room,’ you know what I’m saying?  We’re nervous here, we haven’t been with each other in years to write or in general, like, let’s talk about that.”

Kristian – “What is this gonna be?  And, as we started to get further into it, at some point Jennifer just kind of turned, and you were starting to talk about, somebody who’s listening to this, what are they gonna think?  Like, how can it help them?

Jennifer – “Yes, we were talking about our specific experience, but we also were aware that hey, what if you were just somebody listening to this song and you weren’t the uber-fan that knew our whole story?”

Kristian – “What if this was your first Sugarland song?”

Jennifer – “Can you like the song without knowing our story?”