Little Big Town’s Tornado is spending its fifth straight week at the top of the country albums chart. The collection sold another 23,000 copies to remain at No. 1 on the country chart. Luke Bryan’s tailgates & tanlines holds steady at No. 3 on the chart, followed by Eric Church’s Chief at No. 4.
Little Big Town had a new producer at the helm for their latest album – Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Cage the Elephant). While they had met him previously when he played guitar on their album, The Reason Why, they felt a musical connection and comfort when considering him as a producer. “When we first met with Jay, there was instant kind of camaraderie. We got each other,” says LBT’s Phillip Sweet. “There’s just a confidence coming from him.”
They’re currently taking the country charts by storm with their latest single, “Tornado.”
AUDIO: Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman and Jimi Westbrook say they worked out songs at Jay Joyce’s kitchen table before going into the studio downstairs.
LBT (figuring out songs in studio) OC: (Jimi) …great experience. :55
KIMBERLY: “We sat at his kitchen table in his house upstairs from his studio and figured out what this record was going to be with that list of 26 songs or whatever it was, and experimented here and there and figured it out. Really, we did that every day that we rehearsed, we sat up there every day and figured out what was going to become of that very day.” JIMI: “And talked about the day before, like ‘Well, that one felt really good yesterday, didn’t it? That feels good, and that one didn’t feel so good.’ We started talking about, ‘I’m not sure that one’s gonna come together.’ Even that part of it, the whittling of it, wasn’t forced. It’s almost as if it revealed itself of what was supposed to be together. These songs feel like they belong together, and that kind of just happened. None of that was forced either, which is nice. It was a really great experience.”
AUDIO: Little Big Town’s Phillip Sweet talks about Tornado producer Jay Joyce.
LBT (Jay Joyce) OC: …from him. :30
“When we first met with Jay, there was instant kind of camaraderie. We got each other. I think he got us, and we really, from meeting him previously – he had worked on The Reason Why playing some guitar – so we had met him and had worked with him on Jack Ingram’s record. [We] just liked being around the guy, and I think that trust was part of the letting go. It was kind of an instant, you felt good with him behind the control board. There’s just a confidence coming from him.”
