Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman and Phillip Sweet are Little Big Town.

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If this were 1965, we’d call the members of Little Big Town flower children, and that would be just fine with them.

"We’re a big hippie family on the bus," Phillip Sweet said by phone from somewhere in Ohio. "Our little girl is 2½, Kimberly’s little girl is 3 and Jimi and Karen’s little boy is 6 months. They all have their little places to sleep, and my wife and Kimberly’s husband come out on the road. Family’s really important to us. We make it work because we want to make it work. We’re unified."

The hippie bus will pull into West Palm Beach on Saturday when the band opens for Sugarland at Cruzan Amphitheatre.

LBT’s members – Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Roads Schlapman, Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook – have been touring together for more than 12 years, and since the beginning, the quartet, a country version of the Mamas and the Papas, has been committed to showcasing their intricate harmonies rather than one lead singer.

"Our vision has always been to have the harmony be the focal point," Sweet said. "When you hear a song of ours the radio, we hope you automatically know it’s Little Big Town. We want to define our own sound, but we’re different than other mixed-gender groups. Each one of us steps out and takes lead and we’ve always done that. Labels tried to convince us to pick one lead person, but why not showcase all the talent in the band? We all wanted to find moments for our voices that made them shine. I think it brings a lot of variety and diversity, and hopefully people want to listen to it over and over."

LBT released The Reason Why, its fourth album, in August, on its fourth record label – not the way it’s usually done.

"We took the long road," Sweet laughs. "I’m really grateful we’re with Capitol. It’s really great to feel the momentum shifting again."

Hot country song

Critics and fans love the album. The first single, Little White Church, quickly clicked to No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart making it LBT’s second-best showing yet. It’s one of nine songs the band wrote.

"We always wanted to be the primary writers, not to selfishly do that, but there’s a lot stuff we wanted to say and write about. We experimented with writing with different people, but it’s the songs that we wrote together that we seem to gravitate toward. We just want to make every song on the record something that all four of us were moved by and loved. If we’re not all jazzed about an idea we set it aside. We set a really high standard for ourselves. No fillers. No, ‘Oh I kind of like that.’ We want to love every song. And there’s the jealousy factor: we pick the songs we wish we’d written," Sweet said.

But there’s little jealousy among the members, and decision-making is a democracy and everyone accepts that. "You have to be OK with that. We check our egos at the door every day.

Message of hope

One song that definitely works for the band is the final cut, Lean Into It, which captures their strength.

"That’s probably our personal favorite. Our story is the story of perseverance. We’ve hit bumps in the road, personally and professionally, and we loved that message of hope. We’ve been closing our show with it, coming out acoustic and playing it. It leaves you with a feeling of empowerment. You can get through that struggle and come out the other side and it’s going to be OK," Sweet said.

One challenge the band faced this year was the flooding in Nashville. "We pretty much lost most everything," he said. "We had everything set up and we were getting ready to rehearse for the tour. We were playing the Kentucky Derby, and it happened so fast, nobody was able to get anything out. I lost a 1932 Gibson guitar of mine that I had just used in the Little White Church video. Lean Into It took on a whole new meaning after that. We had to scramble to find equipment to go out on tour."

But when the going gets tough, LBT doesn’t quit, members just work harder.

"We’re strivers. We don’t want to sit back and take the easy road, we want to push ourselves to new places and hopefully discover things about ourselves. That’s the whole process of being creative and making records. It can also help you. It’s a therapeutic process," Sweet said.

"And," he added, "we’re very hungry. We still have goals we haven’t reached. We want to be that headlining group selling out arenas and having commercial success but also having integrity. To marry those two isn’t always the easiest thing, the whole art versus commerce. Hopefully you find a balance between the commerce and art and between the hard times and good times."

Sugarland with Little Big Town

At the Cruzan Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $35-$62.75 reserved seating, $35 lawn, or $75 lawn four-pack.

Info: (800) 745-3000. www.livenation.com