TEAM LAST CALL

It’s two in the afternoon, and Kimberly Schlapman is in a hotel room somewhere near Portland, OR, trying in vain to pacify her 2-year-old with ice chips.

As one of four members in Nashville band Little Big Town, Schlapman is wrestling to reconcile her two new identities: mom and country music star. Her life as it stands now is a blitzkrieg of diaper changes and meet-and-greets, with nightly stadium concerts peppered in for good measure. Despite the hectic schedule, however, she and her bandmates are enjoying one of the first truly peaceful moments of their career, which up to this point had been pockmarked with record label strife, divorces, and family deaths (Schlapman’s first husband died of a heart attack in 2005).

After more than a decade of trials and tribulations, the dust seems to have finally settled in Little Big Town. The release of the group’s latest album, A Place To Land, signaled the beginning of a healthy relationship with new label Capitol Records. All four members are happily married (two of them to each other), and the babies are coming in rapid fire. Team Last Call caught up with Schlapman (and daughter) to talk about tragedy, triumph and other aspects of life during Little Big Town’s pregnant pause.

Team Last Call: Until recently, your life as a band was just one tragedy after another. Do you feel like survivors to a certain extent?

Kimberly Schlapman: Oh, definitely. We have persevered through all kinds of stuff. We are definitely survivors, and we are survivors because we love the music and we love each other. When one of us is down, the other three pick up the load and carry that one along. We have a really special bond.

TLC: To be a band for this amount of time and to still have your original four members is amazing in and of itself, but then to go through that kind of adversity ...

KS: I’m proud of it. Karen and I had this idea about 13 years ago, I think, to do this band. We knew that we would have to put together the best vocal collaboration we could, but also, it had to be the right personalities that could live together, because we knew we’d be stuck together more than we would our families. Thankfully, I guess we made the right choices. Karen and Jimi ended up getting married, so that was the perfect choice for her.

TLC: I read that before you were successful, you were at a point where you would have qualified for food stamps.

KS: We made such very little money. My late husband was my provider. He had a good job, so it was OK that I wasn’t making anything on the road. But some of the members of the band didn’t have someone to provide for them. The four of us would drive ourselves in the van anywhere in the country that would have us play, just for gas money and to cover the van rental. There were many, many very lean years for our band.

TLC: Now you’re on the other side of the spectrum with these huge tours. You can hardly sneeze without being nominated for some kind of award.

KS: We’re just thankful for our journey. As we look back, we know that every part of our journey was meaningful and for a certain purpose. We wouldn’t want the easy road, looking back. Our journey is the reason we write the songs we write today and the reason we make the music that we make. I’m sure of it.

TLC: You guys are like a commune on wheels with your spouses and children in tow. What’s that like?

KS: We love it. We thankfully have gone from a minivan to two buses and trailers, so we’ve got a little room to spread out. We have the crew on one bus, and then we have the four of us and spouses and two babies on our bus. It’s fun. It’s a challenge. As a mother, it’s a challenge with a two-year-old to keep her quiet at times. But when we get down and get kind of drudged in the business part of it, it’s nice to have the perspective of a little infant child. We just love it.

TLC: It must be tiring, because you have downtime as a musician, but you don’t really get to punch a clock on being a mom.

KS: I’ve waited a very long time to be a mom. It’s the best job in the whole world. I wouldn’t trade anything for it. And it is challenging at times, and it’s tiring, definitely, but I’m used to it now. I think I’m just tired all the time and I don’t even notice it. I’m just used to sleep deprivation and just being run ragged. But my husband also comes out. He’s just my rock. He is my helpmate and is Mr. Mom out here on the road.

TLC: There really isn’t even a hint of controversy in your background. I think there’s something about being in the country market where having a clean image also seems to be expected.

KS: It is expected. I think it has a lot to do with how we were raised. Not that any other artists were raised poorly or anything. But we were raised to appreciate what we have and to give back. It probably is expected in our format, and I’m glad. We’re just normal, average people. We’re not perfect. We certainly know how to have fun.

TLC: What would you put on Little Big Town’s tombstone one day?

KS: I think this is a band that never quit and always persevered through the struggle, and it paid off. Why have we made it? Because we never gave up. The times when nobody wanted to hear our music, we believed that we were making music worth hearing. We pumped our arms. My late husband used to say, “Pump your arms!” And I think of that so often, because that’s what we’ve done as a band. We just pumped our arms through it and made it.

*Reprinted from Fly Magazine

“I hate when people are like, ‘So, if you had to choose …’ Why do I have to choose?”
Julianne Hough was born to dance. She was also born to sing, act, model, write novels, split atoms, cure cancer and apparently anything else on Earth she feels like doing. She’s not really into limitations.
Until last year, the 20-year-old Utah native was best known as the winner of two championships on Dancing With The Stars. She then decided to try her hand at music and, one Juicy Fruit commercial later, was the proud owner of the nation’s number one country album. Now Hough has her eyes set on the movie industry. At press time, the starlet was awaiting final word on her casting in the remake of Footloose, due out in June 2010.

Team Last Call: You were born in Utah, lived in London and then moved to L.A., and yet your first love is country music. How did that happen?
Julianne Hough: Even though I grew up in Utah, it’s very country music-orientated out there. I grew up listening to it with my family. I always felt like this is the kind of music I wanted to sing one day. When I was thinking about my career and where I wanted to take it, people were like, “Well, you should do pop music because you dance.” That’s not really true to who I am. It might work for a little bit, but I want a long career, and this is where my heart is. So we went for it.

TLC: You grew up studying dance, but you’ve called music your first love. At what point did music eclipse the other stuff?
JH: I grew up dancing, singing and acting. When I was in London, I was doing all three. I just more heavily emphasized the dance because I was competing rigorously with it. But the music has always been there. I’ve always wanted to do it. I want to entertain, whether it’s dancing, singing or acting. They all fit together. It’s not like I’m trying to be a singer and an astronaut.

TLC: I read about the audition you did for Footloose, so I figured acting couldn’t be far behind.
JH: As long as it makes sense. I really want to focus on one thing at a time and make sure I do the very best that I can at whatever I’m doing. But the music is the priority for me.

TLC: Since you’re only 20, some people are questioning whether you have the depth of experience to be an authentic country singer.
JH: It’s funny, even though I’m only 20 years old, I’ve lived a pretty crazy life already. I lived away from my family from when I was 10 to 15 in London. I’ve competed all over the world. I immediately graduated from high school and moved out and lived on my own with two thousand dollars – I haven’t asked my parents for a cent yet. Even though I’m 20, I’ve definitely had a worldly life. It hasn’t been sheltered at all. I feel like I grew up really, really fast and had to take on a lot of responsibility. So to me, my age and maybe how I look is 20 years old, but I feel like I’m, like, 30.

TLC: On 20/20, they called you “one of the best dancers on the planet.” Are they right?
JH: Oh my gosh! That’s amazing. That’s a huge accomplishment and an honor to be called that. I don’t know. I’m sure that there’s plenty of better dancers out there. I just happen to be shown on TV.

TLC: You were also number 25 on this year’s Maxim’s Hot List. Is that good news, bad news or no news?
JH: To me, of course it’s flattering, but it’s not like, “Oh my gosh, I’m 25 on Maxim!” I’m gonna take it and be like, “Oh, that’s cool,” and then I’m gonna leave it there.

TLC: What do you make of the fame that comes with being a successful singer and dancer? Is that part of what you’re after?
JH: I’m definitely not after that. There’s people out there who just want to be famous, and then there’s people out there that want to be recognized for their talents and their abilities. I want to do everything. I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to act. I want to do all that, and not because I need the recognition. I want to do it because I love to do it and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. It’s so fun and exciting.

TLC: Are you comfortable being in the spotlight?
JH: I think you kind of have to be. But I mean, I’ve noticed a lot of paparazzi lately. If I see paparazzi, I’ll go the other way. I’m not going to ham it up.

TLC: You’re portrayed as a goody two-shoes. Is that image true to life?
JH: I try to be as good as I can. I’m not going to try too hard – otherwise, I’m not going to relax and be myself. But I have nieces and younger siblings. If I were to look up to somebody, I’d want to look up to somebody who’s really cool and down to earth and is still a good girl. I want to be that person too.

TLC: It’s funny that you’re making news just for being well behaved.
JH: I try to be! I think I’m too busy to get in trouble. I don’t know how [other celebrities] get in trouble. They should be too busy to! That’s what my parents’ philosophy was when we were growing up: “Just put ’em in a bunch of lessons so they don’t get in trouble!”

TLC: You won Dancing With The Stars twice, your album hit number one on the country charts, you won Top New Artist at the CMAs. You’ve got all of these accomplishments and accolades. At what point do you think you’ll be satisfied?
JH: Oh my goodness. I’m the type of person that’s always grateful for everything that’s happened. But I want to learn more. I want to accomplish more. I want to just better myself as an artist and as a person. Nothing is ever perfect – it can be great and outstanding, but you can always strive for perfection. And that’s what I go for.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine