Kristian Bush has a new band: Dark Water. The group recently released an uplifting single, "Paint It Blue," from a self-titled and self-produced debut album.

"I heard the music, which was very energetic, and said, 'I know what this looks like!'" Bush recalls to Billboard about "Paint It Blue." "I started playing around with this fun idea that there’s an apparition, this ghost that comes to you in your dream, and she's telling you how to make it through all the troubles that are going on in your life. She's like, 'Look, man, it's going to be okay,' and she's doing it in all sorts of interesting rhymes and thoughts and just keeps upping the game.

"It's a little bit of a puzzle, lyrically, that unfolds the more you listen to it," he adds.

Dark Water, the album on which "Paint It Blue" appears, was released on Nov. 15. The group now plans to release six songs every six months for the duration of four years.

While Dark Water plan to release several singles, Bush insists that he doesn't want people to misinterpret the group as a side project. "We decided to start with an album so everybody would understand this isn't a side project," he says.

Dark Water will be joining Bush's other band, Sugarland, his duo with fellow country star Jennifer Nettles, on tour in 2020, but further details of that trek have yet to be announced. While Bush has joined Dark Water, he also reveals that Sugarland are in the middle of recording a new album that should be out next year as well.

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