Kristian Bush to Release 52 Songs to Commemorate His 52nd Birthday – Thanks to Vince Gill

Joseph Llanes Kristian Bush

Kristian Bush was surprised he's 52 years old. Bush's 50th birthday — March 14, 2020 — coincided with the day COVID-19 forced the U.S. into lockdown. He stayed home like much of the rest of the world and lost track of time — and his career. When Kristian Bush turned 52 in March, he celebrated his birthday with cake and a plan.

"I've spent most of my life having to reimagine setbacks as opportunities," Bush, one-half of the Grammy-winning country duo Sugarland, tells PEOPLE. "It was hard to think that something good could come out of the pandemic, but if you don't try, you'll never know. I thought, 'Why not put out 52 songs on my 52nd birthday?'"

The idea morphed into a 52-song, four-volume album that Big Machine Label Group will release in installments over the next year. In addition, Bush records an accompanying weekly podcast — 52-The Podcast — that looks at the relationship between his past hits and his new songs.

"There's a lot of comfort and strength that can come from telling yourself the truth about yourself," he says. "People are either ashamed of how their age makes them feel, or they're scared of what people might think. I think 52 feels pretty young."

Joseph Llanes Kristian Bush

The singer is halfway through the release process with his first two volumes, 52 – ATL x BNA and 52 – In the Key of Summer, out now. 52 – ATL x BNA is a study of Nashville's country storytelling crossed with Atlanta's R&B musicianship. 52 – In the Key of Summer celebrates the feelings associated with the season. The third volume of 52 is due at the end of September. So far, the collection's most popular songs include "When This Shirt Was New," "Everybody Needs a Somebody," "Tennessee Plates" and "Everybody Gotta Go Home."

"Now that I'm halfway into this process of putting out an entire album every three months, I noticed I'm releasing music at the speed of the attention span of the people who listen," says Bush, 52. "It seems that we're moving fast, and the idea of putting one song out a year or one record out a year is just not fast enough. I'm just making a 'Best of Summer' playlist of my songs for you."

Joseph Llanes Kristian Bush

52 – In the Key of Summer is home to "When This Shirt Was New," "Everybody Needs a Somebody" and "Tequila," along with fan favorites "The MMM Song," "Tangled Up" and "Put a Smile on It." The latter boasts a hand-animated video that Bush says "is exactly the kind of song you would expect to come out of me."

"I think what's beautiful about it is its simplicity," he says. "My brother, who was co-writing with us, was describing my music. He's like, 'Well, when you play a beach song, it's like a beach song with a smile on it. When you play even a sad song of Kristian's, it's a sad song with a smile on it.' And I was like, 'Man, why don't we write that?'"

Bush found confidence and inspiration to release his gargantuan collection from an unexpected source — Vince Gill. Sugarland was new to the music scene when the "Baby Girl" duo opened for Gill, who was promoting his four-record box set. Bush thought that with that many songs, it had to be a collection of hits. But it wasn't — it was all new music.

"I thought, 'Man, what a cool thing to be doing,'" Bush says. "Because if I were a fan, I'd be getting 40 new songs where normally I'd have to wait four years for it. I haven't seen anyone do it since."

Popular radio host and media personality Bobby Bones was an unexpected source of support. Bones unexpectedly played Bush's "When This Shirt Was New" on his radio show a few times, enough to make the contemporary country bop chart. The inclusion is a pleasant surprise for Bush, who hopes the song leads listeners to the entire collection.

"This is different than trying to film a commercial that catches your eye," says Bush, who also wrote and performs "Forever Now," the theme song on Say Yes to the Dress. "This isn't even a full-length movie that you might return to, but an entire four seasons of Netflix that I want you to be glued to and return to and feel satisfied when you get to the end."

RELATED: Sugarland's Kristian Bush on Why Being a Solo Artist Is Awesome

He knows the songs connect because he hears from fans daily on social media and sees their smiling faces when he plays the new songs in concert. And he's smiling, too, because when the music comes out, it always sounds better than it did the first day in the recording studio.

"One of the reasons is because your confidence goes up as an artist," Bush says. "Confidence is a rare commodity among artists because insecurities run deep like coal mines. But as much as you might feel like an imposter or lucky or still shocked that you even get to do this, you're still approaching suddenly with confidence, resulting from making a record. Because if it was valuable enough to write it down, it was valuable enough to record it. Then it gets to be recreated every time someone hits play."

Joseph Llanes Kristian Bush

In addition to Sugarland and his solo career, Bush also writes musicals and plays in his Americana rock duo Billy Pilgrim and his rock jam band Dark Water. For him, the birthday collection tells the story of someone who "has been granted permission to create without consequence."

"52 tells the story of an artist who won't quit," he says. "It tells the story of finding a way."