Kristian Bush is the country music superstar next door. He's a family man with a wife and two kids who just happens to make a living playing music for thousands each night and making multi-platinum records as half of Atlanta-based duo Sugarland.

Bush and bandmate Jennifer Nettles will release a special fan edition of their third album, "Love on the Inside," Tuesday. It costs a few dollars more, but it includes five bonus tracks that won't be on the regular release arriving July 29.

AJC ARCHIVE (ENLARGE)
Sugarland's Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles are releasing a special 'fan' edition of their third album, 'Love on the Inside,' that will feature five bonus tracks not available on the regular CD.
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Sugarland is proof that there are second chances in life. Sometimes, even third chances. Both Bush and Nettles spent years as solo artists and members of various local bands before hitting it big with Sugarland. Last week, we spoke with Bush by phone from Milwaukee, where he was in between gigs.

It seems like this album followed a little quicker than the last one ["Enjoy the Ride"]. Is there a reason for that?

The album that was coming out in October is now coming out in July. We recorded it in Atlanta, so this is like an all Atlanta gig. We didn't let anybody hear the album, not even the label, until we were done. We just let them run with choosing the single. They said, 'Let's take a risk and put this particular song ["All I Want to Do," currently No. 5 on the country chart] out first and it's working so well that they had to move the release date up three months.

When was the last time you got to spend much time at home?

You know, this past Monday I took my son to Six Flags. We get home every once in a while. Right now, it's going to be scarce for the next two months, month and a half. We've been healthy about it. We work hard at getting home.

We played in Canada on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Then, I flew home to take Tucker [age 6] to Six Flags and to play with Camille [age 3]. And then we flew out Tuesday to play last night's show.

Besides your friends and family, what do you miss most about home when you're on the road?

I think it's just being familiar. Knowing that when I leave my driveway, I know where things are. I know I can go down the street, I can get a cup of coffee. I know where that is. I still get mad when I come home and a parking lot grew a whole new building. That's Atlanta for you.

There are some things that I really appreciate about Atlanta, and although it is full of wonderful growth, I appreciate that the people are kinda the same, I appreciate the anonymity of it. It's not like we're going home to Nashville or even Los Angeles, where everybody is staring over their menu at the restaurant to see if they know anybody. If you're not Ludacris, man, people don't care. And even then, they're like, [in a laid back voice] "hey man, it's Ludacris."

They've had years to get used to you here.

Yeah, it's not a big deal. Everyone in Decatur is so polite and understanding. Because most of the time I'm hanging out with my kids and my wife. I live in Avondale Estates — you know, it's where people go to breed — and there I am Tucker's dad.

Was the third album easier to make than "Enjoy the Ride"?

The anticipated pressure that you imagine would come with the amount of record sales and success and good fortune that we've had really wasn't there. I think most of the pressure landed on the second album. We wrote "Enjoy the Ride" in about two weeks. Luckily, as they say in Mississippi, if you squeeze an orange you get orange juice. So, under pressure, that's what we sound like. Given the time to stretch, this is the kind of album you get.

We recorded this down the street at Southern Tracks, and you can almost feel it. To me, you can feel it. If you were fans of what we were doing before we showed up in country music, as songwriters, I think you're starting to see more of a glimpse of who we are and where we came from, interpreted in a way that is current country music.

Ten years ago, did you have any notion that things would take off for you like they have?

Let's see, 1998. I had just gone through seven years of a major label contract and I was probably the youngest guy I knew that had a publishing deal. I certainly felt inside like I wasn't finished, but I can't tell you that I had imagined this outcome, particularly in this genre. I didn't know how it was going to play out, I thought maybe it would play out as a producer or a writer. I did get that strange creeping feeling you get in your belly that I wasn't finished, I wasn't able to lay the guitar down. I had hoped something like this would happen, but I hadn't imagined it.