- Our next guest is a Grammy-winning
musician with her band Sugarland.
She's out now with a Broadway-themed album
that drops this Friday,
it's called Always Like New.
Say hello to my girl, Jennifer Nettles.
(audience cheering and clapping)
I know, we can do,
maybe that.
We might not get fired for that.
I love your outfit!
- Thank you, likewise.
Meow.
- Oh thank you, oh my gosh,
yeah well you get it, but
it's like some days, you're like okay...
- You're killing it.
She's killing it, isn't she?
- No, I love your outfit, I haven't seen you in forever.
- It's been a minute.
- Yeah well I haven't seen anyone in forever.
- It's been a hot minute for everybody
'cause also we've been in like
a year that disappeared.
- Yes. It's gone.
- So, yeah gone.
- It's gone, it's fine.
But how has your family been?
- Everybody is good,
everybody is good considering.
- Yeah.
- You know, I mean,
I think the kids are way more resilient than we are
at this point.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- I feel like all of our resilience
this year has just been like
(imitates airplane crashing)
gone, you know?
- I think as soon as Disneyland opened up,
my kids were fine.
(laughing)
They were like it's fine, Disneyland's back,
everything is going to be fine.
- Good. The world is right.
- The world is now spinning again.
But I heard that you performed at your son's school.
Was he, is he at the age where he thinks it's cool?
Or is he kind of like, "Oh mom."?
- He was so,
you know it's interesting,
sometimes he can take it or leave it.
He was super proud that day.
- [Kelly] Aw!
- Of course this wasn't this year,
'cause as I said, he wasn't there.
Oh yeah, there's the picture,
precious art.
Oh my God, I want to eat him.
- [Kelly] Look at that awesome picture.
- Yeah so he loved it then though,
he was super proud then
and some days he's like "yeah, no please, just go on.
Do not sing, move along."
- That's all of our kids.
Some days they're so proud, and then other days
they tell people Nick Jonas is their favorite Voice Coach
and you're like, "Sure."
- You're like, "Fine."
- Sure, yeah Jumanji was cool, I guess.
- Yes.
- So how old were you when you started performing?
I don't think we ever even talked about that
when we worked on duets years ago.
- I know, all those years ago. - Yeah.
- You know what, I started in church, like most of us do,
- Oh okay, yeah.
when I was about six years old.
- Oh wow, that young? - [Jennifer] Yeah.
- Wow. - [Jennifer] Yeah.
- That's awesome.
- [Jennifer] Children's choir,
- Yes! Represent! I did that as well.
- Doing the Christmas pageant that we did,
and the Children's Choir Director,
Ms. Kathy Vickers,
thank you, yes,
she went to my mom and said,
"You know, I think Jennifer has some propensity for
music and maybe you should put her in piano lessons."
She was also the town piano teacher,
so that worked out real well for her.
- So she's getting some work.
- [Jennifer] She was drumming up, she was hustling.
- [Kelly] I love it.
- It turned out well.
- It turned out really well.
Have you always loved Broadway?
Cause the new album is all Broadway.
- Yes, always.
It's all Broadway, and I've always wanted to do this
record.
For me, it has been the most,
and I know you've had these kinds of records,
that feel the most vocally exciting.
- Yeah.
- And the most vocally expansive,
especially because as artists sometimes if we get
pegged with one sound...
- [Kelly] 100%, that's why I love Christmas albums.
You can do whatever you want.
- Me too! You can do whatever you want and nobody
says anything.
- Yeah.
- Nobody cries, nobody fusses, nobody whines.
- Yeah, yeah, just sounds classic.
- So I've always wanted to do this because I grew up doing
theater.
I grew up, you know, in community theater, in high school,
in college, all throughout.
And I always really wanted to get back to it.
Super thankful for the success I had as a musician,
but also thankful that that success has let me enter into
then the theater community at a place,
because you came and saw me years ago like...
- [Kelly] Yes, I did.
- In Chicago.
- And you were fricking awesome.
And I've always wanted to,
I'm a nerd for Broadway too.
- [Jennifer] I know you are!
- I grew up with musical theater
and so I'm envious of this whole project
and I was envious and just so elated for you as well.
- Thank you.
- [Kelly] You shine so bright.
- You get it though.
It's like, it holds a place in your heart and it really,
I think informs.
- It's a hard thing to do, too.
Broadway is hard.
Like it's a big schedule.
- It's a, yes.
- If you can nail that, you're amazing.
- It's a big schedule.
- Yeah.
- But it's just so enriching and so worth it.
And I think, you know, the music itself just,
as you're saying,
is so informative as an artist, and I know you get this too
as a performer,
you know, you learn about what it is to be
a character in a song,
you learn about what it is to embody that.
- It's not that far from country, to me.
Like country music is all story-telling.
- It's all story-telling, it's all story-telling.
- Yeah, that's why when every,
- For sure.
- They said you were doing the album, I was like,
"Well, it's like more story-telling."
- Obvious, not a big leap.
- Yeah, I love it.
Do you remember the very first Broadway show that you
ever saw?
- Yes I do, on Broadway more specifically,
because I was in the third grade.
- [Kelly] Wow, lucky.
- Yeah, super lucky, because my aunt and uncle,
my Aunt K and my Uncle Walter,
took me and my cousin, Allison, on an Amtrak train,
from Jessup, Georgia,
all the way up to New York City.
So this is my Aunt Cora Lee and Uncle Jerry,
my great aunt and uncle
and they lived in New York City.
They still do, well he passed this year.
But they took us to see A Chorus Line.
- Oh wow! That was your first?
- It was very racy for a young girl,
I was scandalized in some ways,
but absolutely mesmerized in most ways,
in the world that they created on that stage.
And she took me outside afterwards, and she said,
in her best New York accent,
"Jennifer, what did you think?"
And I said,
"I'll be back."
- Oh my God, you were full-on Terminator.
- Yes, yes, full-on Terminator.
- And I can't wait for Broadway to get back.
Like, to feel that energy.
- And it's coming back, it's coming back.
September, there's going to be some soft openings happening.
- Yeah. Oh my God, I'm so excited for you.