Half of Little Big Town Is Married to Each Other. What Their Bandmates Say About the Dynamic: 'Just Do It!' (Exclusive)

Jimi Westbrook nods animatedly when asked if he worried at all when he and Karen Fairchild first decided they were, perhaps, actually more than bandmates. 

The pair, who make up half of country band Little Big Town, kicked off their music careers in 1999 alongside Kimberly Schlapman and Phillip Sweet, but it wasn’t until years later that Westbrook and Fairchild were single at the same time and coupled up. 

“You think about those things. You're like, ‘How's this going to change?’” recalls Westbrook of wondering how the relationship-upgrade would affect the band. 

Eighteen years later and “we're still trying to figure it out,” he quips. 

The then-budding romance between Fairchild and Westbrook, however, actually turned out to be a good thing for the band, according to Sweet and Schlapman.

“You should have seen the way they butted heads before they got together!" says Sweet. "So it's better, obviously."

Schlapman echoes her friend’s sentiment, agreeing “no,” neither she nor Sweet were ever worried about the band’s fate. 

“We knew they were in love before they knew they were in love,” she says with a grin. 

“We were like, ‘They need to just do it,’” Sweet adds. [Kimberly and I] would look at each other, like ‘They like each other!’”

Fairchild and Westbrook got married in May 2006, bringing new meaning to the word "family" for a band that already felt like one.

They welcomed son Elijah in March 2010, who joined Schlapman’s daughter Daisy, and Sweet’s daughter Penelopi Jane.

In 2017, Schlapman and her husband Stephen adopted daughter Dolly, completing their family and the band’s brood. 

The band has also accumulated quite the array of friends and collaborators over the years, too.

Their circle includes everybody from Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan to Miranda Lambert and Kelsea Ballerini — the latter of whom are both featured on the Greatest Hits album. 

“I don't think we've ever had features on any record that we've ever done,” says Fairchild. “We've sung on so many people's records that we've never done it on our own, so this was really awesome to just be able to get to do that.”

Lambert, who joins the band on “Little White Church,” “feels like a fifth member anyway,” says Schlapman. “We have so much fun when we've done Bandwagon tours with her, and anytime we get to sing with her is such an honor. It just felt right.”

Ballerini, for her part, lends her vocals to her favorite song by the band: “Shut Up Train."

“She has loved that song for years and years. We were talking about Greatest Hits, and then I was writing with her, and I was like, ‘Well, you should sing ‘Shut Up Train’ with us. That would be amazing,’” recalls Fairchild. “[Kelsea] was like, ‘Done. Let's do it.’” 

The band's 2014 smash hit "Girl Crush" is also featured on the Hits album. The tune is one of their most well-known songs to date, though its debut sparked radio controversy as some interpreted the lyrics to be about a same-sex attraction. 

“We played it for Blake in the dressing room at The Voice, and he stood up and was like, 'Touchdown!' He was like, 'I've never heard it said like that, ever,'" recalls Fairchild of the reassurance the band received from their industry friends at the time. "That was really encouraging, obviously, because we were like, 'OK, Blake knows what he's doing.' I mean, most of the time he does.”

“In music, maybe not in life. I'm just kidding,” says Westbrook with a laugh. 

“No, we love him. But that was so encouraging just to hear him say that," says Fairchild. "That's the way a lot of our friends felt, like, ‘OK, the fans have to hear this.’”

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