Courtesy of Sugarland

Sugarland is Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles.

There's no room for doubt that Sugarland -- after five years, three platinum-selling albums and armloads of major music awards -- is a country music success.

So it's kind of funny to hear band member Kristian Bush say the band is "still waiting" for its "big chance."

He's dead serious, though. Bush and Sugarland partner Jennifer Nettles want a heaping helping of pop music domination, too. There's just one problem, Bush said: The act has had crossover chart success throughout its career, but has felt nothing but "awkward resistance" from pop radio.

"We believe that what we do, it doesn't really matter what you call it," said Bush, whose band hits the Roanoke Civic Center Coliseum on Friday night. "And I don't really think that we're mad about it. I just think you have to be patient ... [waiting for the] word of mouth that spreads when people listen to our music and go: 'Man this is good, I want to play it for you. I want to play this record for you. I want you to hear this.'"

And it's not about making even more money, he said. The duo's latest disc, "Love On The Inside," peaked at No. 1 Billboard's pop and country charts. The record's first three singles -- each co-written by Nettles, Bush and song-writing partner Bobby Pinson -- have topped the country chart, according to Billboard.com.

It's about being heard.

"Our goal has always been, since we put this band together, to reach as many people as we can with what we're saying," he said. "And I think it still matters. ... I think what's happening is we're moving from a culture of acquisition of things into a culture of acquisition of meaning. And I think the world is moving in that direction. I see it in our shows. I see it in the faces of the parents that I drop my kids off next to.

"People are looking for meaning more than they're looking for more money to buy another whatever. And we are that band."

Defending country radio

Bush, a multi-instrumentalist and harmony singer, came to Sugarland from the folk-rock world.

He was part of the duo Billy Pilgrim (named for the lead character in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five"), which made a couple of discs for Atlantic Records in the mid-1990s. He was already used to dealing with the radio world when he formed Sugarland with now-departed Kristen Hall in 2003. But until then, he hadn't dealt with country radio. What he learned surprised him.

In pop radio, the playlist rotates about every 12 songs, with little room for new music, he said. Other formats provide some improvement over that tight rotation, he said. But in country radio, the playlists contain between 40 and 50 songs.

"And I'll bet you you're hearing a new song, from an artist you don't know, every two hours," he said. "Who knew that ... the most progressive radio is country music."

Bush marveled at how country stations dealt with live audio of "Life In A Northern Town." Sugarland, with help from Jake Owen and Little Big Town, covered the song -- an '80s-era pop hit for The Dream Academy -- and posted a video on YouTube. Stations grabbed the audio and played it on terrestrial radio, he said.

"Country music really will let pop or rock or -- look at me -- folk-rock artists come across into their world, as long as you're bringing something that matters and you're authentic in your intentions," Bush said. "A very warm genre, a very open mind.

"It's not the same way backwards, you know. If Jennifer and I wandered into the urban market, I don't know how well they'd take us. And I know that we've had nothing but, like, awkward resistance from pop radio."

Bush believes those stylistic barriers are already falling away.

"It doesn't freak me out to see a Metallica T-shirt at a Sugarland show," he said. "It happens all the time."

At any rate, Sugarland's biggest songs have reached more ears than hits from other genres, simply because there are about 3,000 country stations -- more than any other music format, he said.

"There's no mystery as to why [Jon] Bon Jovi wanted to start putting out country songs," Bush said. "Because when they get in the top 10 on radio, they're reaching more people, almost exponentially, than they could reach at the top of the [adult contemporary] format."

Risk, learn, grow

Bon Jovi brought Nettles into a studio to duet with him and his band on "Who Says You Can't Go Home." That song hit the top of Billboard's country chart in 2006. A version that didn't include Nettles' vocal reached No. 8 that year on the adult contemporary chart, according to billboard.com.

Bush didn't see the Nettles-free version as a slight.

"When they released those different versions, I think that ... they just didn't think people would know who she was," he said. "I think it was innocent. But what started happening, what's fascinating, is that whenever they would play the version that was a duet [on] pop radio, all the callers would call in and say, 'That's great.'"

That kind of response is nothing new to Bush, who every night on tour gets to hear Nettles let go with her big, elastic voice.

"I think you've probably seen only 30 percent of what she can do, which is really, really amazing," he said. "And I feel like I'm the only one on the planet that knows that. So it's my mission in life to encourage it and show it.

"And she might say the same thing about me. We've been so encouraged. And what happens when you encourage an artist is, they get better. They take a risk, they learn and then they grow.

"And sometimes you don't know what kind of talent you have in you until someone tells you that you have it. It's strangely a fear-based place. If you're not scared to walk out and play guitar hero on a stage, then you do it, and all of a sudden, you're it."