Before he hit big-time paydirt as a member of Sugarland, Kristian Bush was a member of Atlanta alt-folk-rock duo Billy Pilgrim, which saw some success in the early ’90s before Bush and fellow member Andrew Hyra went their separate ways. But now, Billy Pilgrim is back with In the Time Machine, an album of the duo’s final recordings they thought had been lost forever in a studio fire two decades ago.
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Bush recently found a remaining mastered CD copy of the tracks, and told American Songwriter what it took to make the album releasable. “The masters actually burned so all we had left was the mastered CD of the songs in order with all the transitions and everything,” he said. “We couldn’t really change anything except re-approach the mastering. This album existed before the ‘loudness wars’ of the 2000s so we adjusted it to make it competitive when it appears next to other songs on playlists. That is all we did.”
“Recordings are always a little like time machines themselves,” he continued. “Captured breaths like moving sonic photographs. This album was always our white whale. The one that, if we ever really made it, that we could be proud and satisfied, even if no one ever heard it. I am so proud that we made it back then, though I always carried a little regret that it never really got released. Now listening to it, I realize that, as strange as it is to say, that it was not meant to be released then. It was meant to be released now in the middle of the strangest year on record.”
“These songs speak using whispers from nearly 20 years ago,” he said, “messages that only now we could appreciate or understand. I have always been fascinated how a song I wrote when I was 20 for my dad could comfort me through my own troubles and divorce when I was 41. It’s like we are leaving Post-It notes for ourselves in the future. Andrew and I left a giant one, one with colors and melodies and rhythms and dimensions we had no idea we were gonna need, maybe that everyone was gonna need, 20 years later.”
In addition to the new Billy Pilgrim album, Bush is working with his jam band Dark Water and said that Sugarland also has new material coming out soon. He said that what he learned in his early days in Billy Pilgrim helped make Sugarland possible. “Everything I learned I applied in Sugarland. From how to approach an impossible expectation of a pressurized second record, to simply understanding the sheer effort it was going to take to succeed. From how to produce albums after working with Hugh Padgham and Don McCollister and Richard Dodd, to knowing the dynamics of a publishing deal.”
“My experience in Billy Pilgrim didn’t just prep me for how to get Sugarland up and running,” he said, “it reminded me every day what to take in stride and what to really fight for. I think learning how to be in a partnership with another creative person was invaluable. I feel like the knowledge of what sounded good on the radio and how powerful a tool radio could be helped me. Sugarland has written or co-written every radio single we ever had up until we released ‘Babe’ with Taylor Swift. Looking back it is easy to draw those lines now and I kind of love tracing them back.”
A longtime Atlanta resident, Bush has great affection for the music scene there that played a role in his development. “I feel like the Atlanta music scene is unlike anything else in the country,” he said. “The musicians and studios and writers and tracks programmers and engineers and everyone mix together to create a metro area that gives you Christian artists, hip-hop, trap, singer-songwriters, metal bands, southern rock bands, country bands, Gospel acts, everything. My current favorite voice [there] is Marshall Ruffin.”
Bush said that releasing In the Time Machine has been nothing but a positive experience. “I am happy and humbled to hear when artists tell me they started a band because they saw Billy Pilgrim. Working with Andrew again has reminded me about the mystery built into creativity, and how to bravely walk toward it with as little expectation as possible. Humble yourself, forgive yourself, cut yourself a break. Life is hard enough as it is. Go make something again today. You never know. What if it’s awesome!”
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