Interview: Jennifer Nettles Talks HALLELUJAH ANYWAY Holiday Special, GO-BIG SHOW, a Possible Broadway Return & More

Jennifer Nettles is one of country music's most powerful voices both onstage and off. A multi-hyphenate who has dominated the music scene both as a member of Sugarland and as a solo performer, Nettles has also tackled the Broadway stage, jumping into the iconic role of Roxie Hart in Chicago in 2015, brought her talents to the screen in HBO's "The Righteous Gemstones", "Harriet" and the upcoming reality talent show Go-Big Show as a judge, plus many more, and was recently awarded the #EqualPlay award by CMT for her work for Equal Play for women and minorities in the music business.

This week, the eternally-talented Nettles is bringing the holiday spirit into our homes with a livestreamed concert entitled Hallelujah Anyway! On Wednesday, December 23rd at 7pm CT, she will be performing songs from her Christmas album, To Celebrate Christmas, giving viewers a sneak peak of new music, and much more!

You can purchase tickets to Hallelujah Anyway HERE!

We spoke with Nettles about putting together Hallelujah Anyway, what we can expect from Go-Big Show, what she is most looking forward to in the future and much more!

---

Let's talk about your upcoming holiday special "Hallelujah Anyway", how did the idea for this come about?

I love the holiday season, and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to really offer my first virtual concert to my fans! It's so funny because as meta as it is, this show really has ended up being a celebration not only of the holidays, but also of the spirit of resilience I think that we have all had this year. And obviously you hear that in the name, "Hallelujah Anyway". But even further than that, originally this show, I was supposed to be with an acoustic ensemble of my band, we were all going to get together, and then the COVID numbers started to rise and we were like, "Okay, well it's not going to be responsible nor safe to travel," so it ended up being even more of a 2020 version of a show! The band got to be together, I was very solo, really meta in that way. But I think we have to lean into that and we've all had to learn how to do that this year!

Talk to me a little bit more about what we can expect to see and hear! How did you go about deciding which songs you wanted to sing?

I put out a Christmas album a couple of years ago, and you'll hear all the songs on that record in this show. You'll also get to hear a sneak peak of some new music I have coming up that I'm really excited about that I can't say too much about!

What are you most excited for people to see?

I'm mostly just excited to share the music, you know. Again, I haven't been able to perform like this in months and months. And even though it is a virtual experience, to get to sing this music, especially since it's holiday music, I think that holds a certain resonance for people, a certain special nostalgia. So, to get to share music, and to get to sing and perform for people, and hopefully to connect them to each other, if they are watching together, which I'm hoping that people will be able to do. It's a wonderful gift, and we've made it possible that you can give the ticket as a gift, and you don't even have to go anywhere, you can safely click, send, and watch it together virtually. I hope that people will be able to connect to themselves and to each other through this show. And it's super fun in the sense that it's a very different Christmas show, it's not your traditional big production, network television, it's a very raw, intimate performance of these very beautiful, powerful songs.

You've also got a new TV show coming out, Go-Big Show, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Go-Big Show is going to be airing on January 7th on TBS and it is a talent show unlike any other! We've got several really good, really entertaining shows, competitions in this country that are performing arts based. We have a couple for dance, we have several for music/vocals more than anything else. And this talent show is not any of those! It is a wild, big spectacle of the Americana tradition of carnival sideshow acts, wild, outlandish, crazy, dangerous performances. So, it's everything except performing arts, is this show. It definitely packs a wow factor and I am pretty excited for people to get to see it.

I can't wait to watch it! Anything fun on TV is exactly what I want to see right now.

Yes, and this will be a wonderful escape in that way. It is light, the rest of the panel of judges, myself, Snoop Dogg, Cody Rhodes, and Rosario Dawson, everybody is really positive, really encouraging, it's not some sort of canned, 'Who's gonna be the mean one?' and 'Who's gonna be this...' it's not. It's encouraging all of these acts to go as big for themselves as they can.

After all of this, when life is somewhat back to normal, what are you most looking forward to? Do you have anything you're looking to tackle creatively that you haven't taken on yet?

I have some things that I'm sniffing around in the musical world, musical world as in Broadway musical world. Really, what I'm hoping for more than anything, that I can't wait for, is for us all to be able to safely gather again. That will allow so many of us in the live entertainment community to go back to work. That will allow all of us as fans of the arts to be able to go and celebrate and participate and engage and watch and gather and go to shows! I can't wait for all of that. And to be able to do that safely, and for people to be able to get back to work when our business has been shut down this entire time. There is no surrogate for the live experience, so I can't wait to be able to get back to that.

Do you have anything else you would like to share?

I want to say to everybody in the Broadway community and the live entertainment community just how much I love and appreciate what everyone does and just to hang in there. I really hope that this vaccine is going to be a big light to help us turn off the ghost light, if you will, so we can all get back there and shine in the ways that we do! So, I hope really soon to be able to see everybody not just virtually, but in person.

---

Purchase tickets to Hallelujah Anyway through THIS LINK!

Check out Jennifer's holiday album, To Celebrate Christmas, below!