John Rich took a sip from a half-filled plastic cup, then cradled the drink in his hand.
He adjusted his black felt cowboy hat, tipping it a bit lower on his forehead, then spoke in a deliberate tone about his third album with partner Kenny Alphin:
"We think it could be the greatest compilation of music we've done to date. It really is a great album," he said, standing in the center of a dimly lit tent backstage at Country Thunder in April.
Then Alphin, the Big in Big & Rich, piped in:
"It's pretty much the same old thing, man. We did it once. We did it twice. It works. So we're just going to do it again and see what happens," he deadpanned, which inspired Rich to add: "The entire record's in Spanish. Other than that, it's completely the same."
There are flashes of the past on"Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace" and glimpses of the pair's future — the focus veers from the party to the family.
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But it's not at the sacrifice of the pair's defiant, irreverence championed since the duo's 2004 multiplatinum debut. In the intro to the rocking single "Radio," Alphin leaps onto his anti-prejudice pulpit, intoning: "We have come so far, but we have so far to come. Prejudice should not exist in this world. Therefore, prejudice, by all means, should not exist in music-a." The song has a classic B&R infectious beat, part frat boy, part hoedown, with electric guitars, hints of electronica and fiddle to remind you that, at its heart, it's a country song.
The album has a few rockers like that, including "Please" with guest rapper Wyclef Jean and the raw and driving "Loud." But the album's tone is more subdued and, well, grown-up.
"Quite honestly, I think the longer we play music, the more honest we become with ourselves," Alphin said in that April interview. "The more honest we become with ourselves, the more honest our music is. And the more honest our music is, the more that it just relates to everybody. I think this album has kind of busted through a whole other place of honesty. People will relate to it. They will be inspired by it. They will be moved by it."
The album's first single, the ballad "Lost in This Moment," is a mushy love song with all the language you'd expect to find in a poem written by a lovesick teen: "Smell the jasmine floating in the air like a love song / Watch my words draw sweet tears from your eyes."
Love is delivered from a steadier hand in "You Never Stop Loving Somebody" ("You just start loving somebody else"). The boys also put their faith out there on the title song and on the inspired "Eternity," whose 29-second opening is sung with sweet melancholy by John Legend.
But the album's biggest buzz will likely come from the pair's honky-tonk arrangement of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long," which is done with such seriousness and reverence that you will find yourself hitting the repeat button on your CD player.
"Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace" adds more fuel for Big & Rich's argument that Nashville needs to change.
"Those hybrid artists are going to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming. Lines are going to get blurrier and blurrier," Rich said in April. "I call it the iPod generation that's coming up right now — people that can listen to any kind of music at the snap of their finger. When you can have access to that kind of music nowadays, it affects the way you write, the way you tour and the way you make your records."
• "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace," Warner Bros. Nashville, $18.98.
