New Music Video From Kristian Bush - "Burning Flowers"

Up & Coming New Nashville - Meet Dark Water, Kristian Bush's New Trio

Band: Dark Water

Bandmates: Kristian Bush, Brandon Bush & Benji Shanks

Label: Architect Music Collective

Sugarland's Kristian Bush and his new bandmates have just revealed a few details about the new band he's started. It's called Dark Water, and it includes him, his brother Brandon Bush and their friend Benji Shanks:

"These songs don't feel like they have an expiration date, and neither does the production," says Dark Water's Benji Shanks. "In 10 or 20 years from now, they will still possess their sense of urgency."

"They feel like they existed before and now we have to be good servants to the songs," says the band's Kristian Bush. "If you were to make a comic book out of the Dark Water story, it's like we found them somewhere in a chest and were magically able to play them. And now they're here."

"You know enough to recognize when something becomes a band," says Brandon Bush, who rounds out the group. "I know when something is better than its individual parts and has a life of its own. That's when you just get out of the way and let it happen."

Once Brandon, Benji and Kristian surrendered themselves to the idea of Dark Water, they began writing material at a wicked clip, signaling the musicians' most prolific and inspired periods of creativity. For the wordsmith Kristian, that meant a return to writing poetry ("I was obsessed with the rhythm of the words," he says), which would mature into songs once he and his bandmates began experimenting on the studio floor with any instrument within their reach.

"The band is all us, playing everything," says Benji, an Allman Brothers enthusiast and veteran of the Southern jam scene who has shared the stage with the likes of Warren Haynes and Blackberry Smoke. His fluid guitar work ties the Dark Water material together and lends the group its earthy vibe.

"Every great band I've ever known had a guitar player that made me go, 'What?'" says Kristian of Benji's evocative playing. "The guitar is the soul of the band. The lyric can't ever get as close to the feeling as that instrument can."

But it's the way that Benji's guitar, pedal steel and bass gel with Brandon's drumming and keys, and Kristian's vocals and guitar that makes the music so immersive. Listen to the rustic "Scarecrow," the brooding "Goliath," the ebullient "Flowers on the Fire," or the hopeful "One of a Kind," all of them songs that envelop and cast a spell over the listener. To listen to Dark Water music is to have a transcendent experience.

In fact, the name of the band was inspired by an NPR report about magnetically charged water beneath the South Pole. The theory is that the "deep water," as scientists call it, absorbs energy and contains it forever.

"I think we'd all love to dip our whole bodies in that and let it wipe our troubles and mistakes away," says Kristian.

The hymn-like song titled "Dark Water" centers on that idea of restoring oneself. According to the band, it has a higher purpose. "That song exists to do something," says Kristian. "When we play it live, you can just feel it in the room."

Along with the magical material, it's the shared history of the members that solidifies Dark Water. Brandon, Benji and Kristian have been soundtracking the lives of listeners for nearly 20 years as members of various bands, from Brandon's tenure in the rock outfit Train and Benji's turns in the jam world, to Kristian's own Grammy-winning duo Sugarland and his solo project.

"That's what makes these songs all work," says Benji. "We combined our individual musical experiences into the collective Dark Water and it became what it is now. And then the songs just came to us."

"It's a high level of a musical relationship that is not easy to acquire," says Kristian of the group's chemistry. "But somehow we acquired it and now we do it. Dark Water is the embodiment of that."

But for all the talk about the songs being gifts from the universe, the reality is that this is a rare band of expert players and writers — the only type of musicians who could ever create such nuanced melodies and phrasings. To achieve that result, the members followed Brandon's discipline that "walls make better art. If you have a boundary," he says, "you work within it, or you push against it." The outcome, almost always, is art that is vibrant and effecting — and in this case, music that also comforts.

"I was interested in how music that I listened to affects us all and what it teaches us," says Kristian. "Why do we go back to listening to certain songs to comfort us?"

"This music is an emotional reset for everyone," Brandon says. "It's an opportunity to reconnect with what inspires and soothes us. And everybody needs that in their creative life."

Their first release is the effervescent positive message song "Paint it Blue." 

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A post shared by Dark Water (@darkwater_music) on Nov 6, 2019 at 10:49am PST

Lindsay Ell Announces Tribute To John Mayer With Upcoming 5/25 Release, The Continuum Project

Artist: Lindsay Ell
Album: The Continuum Project
Label: BBR Music Group
Release date: May 25, 2018

Guitar wunderkind Lindsay Ell will release her version of John Mayer’s Continuum album on Friday, May 25. Lindsay Ell’s The Continuum Project, co-produced and co-engineered by Ell, will be available at all digital retailers and streaming services.

Beginning as a homework assignment from producer Kristian Bush (Sugarland) in preparation to record her debut album, Ell was given two weeks to reimagine her all-time favorite desert island record, recording every single instrument and singing every part alone in her studio. The process led her to emerge with a renewed creative discovery and vision for how she plays, writes and records her own music. The end-result of Bush’s unique assignment became her critically-lauded No. 1 debut album, The Project.

Ell explains, “Recording Continuum was the thing that started it all. Kristian taught me some of the most valuable lessons as my producer from this ‘homework’ assignment. He gave me three rules: I needed to play all the instruments myself, I needed to record it alone in my studio, and I had two weeks. Through it all, I remembered all the things I first loved about making music. I can’t wait for my fans to hear the music that helped shaped ‘Criminal’ and The Project!”

The whirlwind doesn’t stop for Ell who just wrapped a year-long run on Brad Paisley’s Weekend Warrior World Tour. Meanwhile, the multi-instrumentalist is set to join Sugarland’s Still the Same Tour in July ahead of supporting select dates of Keith Urban’s Graffiti U World Tour this fall.

Adding to the excitement, Ell collaborated with Urban on a brand new track “Horses,” featured on his just-released album Graffiti U, available everywhere now

New Music Video From Kristian Bush - "Sing Along"

10th Annual Golf & Guitars Children's Charity Music Festival Hosts Incredible Songwriter & Artist Line-Up - May 15 & 16, 2017

Country Music’s Brightest And Biggest Stars & Songwriters Are Set To Combine Music And Fun On The Links To Raise Well Over $100,000+ For Children In The Greater Sacramento Region and Beyond

 

The Haggin Oaks Golf Complex is thrilled to be partnering with KNCI 105.1 FM and hosting the 10^th Annual Golf & Guitars Music Festival and Children’s Charity Concert on May 15 and May 16. Golf and Guitars is a celebrity pro-am golf tournament and concert featuring nationally recognized & major label country music artists that raises money for two key children's charities here in Sacramento.  Each golfer in the tournament gets to play with one of the celebrities and then gets a seat next to the stage where these artists put on a tremendous concert underneath the beautiful golf course sky. The hottest acts in country music, the up-and-coming artists you’ll soon see topping the charts and some of Nashville’s very best songwriters are all donating their time to help raise funds for children’s charities during the  Golf and Guitars KNCI Music Festival.  Half of the funds will go to the Morton Golf Foundation and half will paid out via a tournament purse to the artist’s children’s charity.

 

The Website: www.golfandguitars.com

The Course: The Alister MacKenzie GC at Haggin Oaks

The Dates: Monday, May 15th and Tuesday, May 16th, 2014 (tournament on day two)

Ticket Prices:

Day Two Concert General Admission: $35

VIP Ticket: $150 - VIP Tickets include designated concert seating, buffet dinner and a non-alcoholic drinks for both nights.

 

The Beneficiaries:

The Morton Golf Foundation

The mission of the Morton Golf Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity, is to provide golf programs that provide exercise in a healthy outdoor environment, to create a recreational environment that builds lasting personal development and that seamlessly introduces life’s core values of the great game of golf to the youth, disabled and underserved communities in the Sacramento region.

 

The Artists:

Scotty McCreery
Kristian Bush
Jack Ingram
Craig Campbell
Jason Michael Carroll
Tucker Beathard
Chris Lane
Parmalee
Love & Theft
Statesboro Revue
Lockhart
Sunny Sweeney
Jamie Lin Wilson
Bucky Covington
Lila McCann
Kayla Ray
Erin Enderlin
Chris Roberts
Jenny Gill
Jake Worthington
Jackie Lee
Brennen Leigh
Drew Kennedy

New Music Video From Kristian Bush- "Light Me Up"

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Kristian Bush To Release Southern Gravity On 4/7

On a break from his Sugarland duo with Jennifer Nettles, Kristian Bush brings his voice to the forefront with his debut solo album, Southern Gravity, to be released April 7 on Streamsound Records.

"I love this album. The songs on Southern Gravity feel like home to me, and I am proud and excited to share them, finally. They are your stories as much as they are mine, and I hope you hear yourself in here, no matter if you are standing up, falling down, or dancing in between the pieces of your life,” said Bush.

For his solo debut, the GRAMMY Award winner teamed with friend and producer Tom Tapley, as well as executive producer Byron Gallimore (Sugarland, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw), to hone Southern Gravity’s groove-heavy mainstream country sound. Bush is a co-writer on each of the album’s 12 tracks, including collaborations with legendary Nashville songwriters like Bob DiPiero, Paul Overstreet, Tom Douglas and more.

The lead single “Trailer Hitch” – now Top 25 and rising at radio -- was named USA Today’s “Song of the Week.” The track was also featured in ROLLING STONE Country’s TOP 25 SONGS OF 2014 and iTunes BEST OF 2014 – COUNTRY SONGS.

Track Listing
1.Make Another Memory (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Rodney Clawson)
2.Light Me Up (Kristian Bush/Jesse Rice)
3.Trailer Hitch (Kristian Bush/Brandon Bush/Tim Owens)
4.Southern Gravity (Kristian Bush/Scooter Carusoe)
5.Flip Flops (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Paul Overstreet)
6.Giving It Up (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Tom Douglas)
7.Feeling Fine California (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Paul Overstreet)
8.Waiting On An Angel (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Bob DiPiero)
9.Walk Tall (Kristian Bush/Jeff Cohen/Nathaniel "Bo" Rinehart/William "Bear" Rinehart)
10.Sending You A Sunset (Kristian Bush/Tim Owens)
11.Sweet Love (Kristian Bush/Sherrie Austin/Phil Barton/Jeff Cohen)
12.House On A Beach (Kristian Bush/Canaan Smith)
 

New Music Video From Kristian Bush- "Trailer Hitch"

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Hear It Here- "American Window" By Sugarland's Kristian Bush

This song is best set-up in Kristian's own words:

"At home in Atlanta, I do my best as a dad to try and brainwash and program my children on key words or phrases that hopefully they can memorize and refer back to in life when they get older. At least once a week, I walk into the kitchen and announce, "Perfect is..." and in chorus they respond, "boring!!!" It is my small attempt to combat the overwhelming obsession with being perfect in our society -- and it is a phrase I am going to use here to begin explaining how I feel about our country.

Our country is not perfect -- it is better than that.

America is alive and breathing. It has a heartbeat and muscles, arteries and veins. It is growing. It gets sick sometimes. It has good days and bad days, winning streaks and losing streaks. It looks back at the good old days when it was younger. It dreams of what it might become when it gets older. It works hard every day.

It makes mistakes, tries to fix them. It goes into the dark woods alone and comes back out. It is a hero. It is a good guy and a bad guy. It loves with everything it's got. It is alive solely because people needed somewhere to go to be free.

I can say that our country is truly amazing -- and never boring."