The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.
Actor, producer, singer, and songwriter Jennifer Nettles truly does it all. From fronting Grammy-winning country music duo Sugarland to acting on projects like “Harriet” “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors,” and most recently HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones,” Nettles takes her title as a multihyphenate to heart. To mark the release of her latest album, “Always Like New,” a compilation of Broadway classics and a love letter to New York City, the country music superstar jumped onto Instagram Live with our managing editor Benjamin Lindsay to speak about her roots in the performing arts, how to take care of your voice as a singer, and how to push yourself out of the box—even when others want you to limit yourself.
Country and broadway music sit very differently on Nettles’ voice.
“The thing about modern popular music, including pop, R&B, definitely country, is it has a structure. It’s really limited; it’s usually verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. Musical theater has no such rules. In terms of vocal melodies, they can be extremely expansive. As a singer, it’s so gratifying and so much fun to be able to sing this music because it expands, it rambles, it twirls, it comes back around. It’s not in this little structured box that modern popular music can be.”
Nettles’ best advice for taking care of your voice is to sleep and not drink too much alcohol (even in a pandemic!).
“Sleep is imperative because your instrument is a part of your body and you carry it with you wherever you go. There are pros and cons: It makes it very mobile, but it also means everything you do to your body, put in your body, or expose your body to can affect your instrument. Most specifically for me, alcohol. I can’t do it as a singer, it causes reflux and a ton of issues. It’s an easy tradeoff, but over the pandemic, it’s been a hard tradeoff! Sleep, no alcohol, warm up, cool down. Especially in the pandemic, I was like ‘Sleep? What’s sleep?’ I know anxiety, but what’s sleep?”
As long as she is storytelling, Nettles is happy with what she is doing—but that doesn’t mean she wants to be put in a box.
“The reality is the trajectory of an artist starts whenever we’re born, but especially whenever we answer the calling for that art. Before Sugarland came on as even a writing project, I had been an independent musician for 10 years and making my living that way. Then what happens is the ‘shining silo of success,’ and it is glittering and it is glorious—and it is still a silo. It’s a golden cage—but it’s still a cage. At the end of the day, I have always been expanding regardless of what it is. Sugarland was an expansion itself for me as an artist. I always wanted to express myself. If I could dance, I would be doing that, too. To me, it’s about storytelling. If I’m writing a song, I will be creating a character. If I’m standing on stage interpreting a song, it’s a character. All of this is about crafting stories and crafting characters.”
Nettles urges aspiring multifaceted artists to never stay small, despite what others may tell them.
“If you want to be multihyphenate, be prepared to fight for your art and your heart. People will want to keep you in one place, they will want you to stay in your lane. Some of them will do it manipulatively from a business standpoint, some of them will do it unwittingly from a heart standpoint because they love you in a certain way and want to see you that way most. Fight for your art, and help those people along that may only see you a certain way. Some people will do so much to do as little as possible; they will do everything in the world to avoid change and stay small. Sometimes they want you to stay small. Don’t stay small. When we’re dying, we will not look back and say, ‘Ugh, I wish I had stayed a little smaller.’ Everyone will say, ‘I wish I had expanded bigger.’ So fight as hard as you can in the moment for it.”
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