We have that storytelling history in country and bluegrass and old time and folk music, blues - all those things that combine to make up the genre. It was probably storytelling before it was songwriting, as far as country music is concerned. It's fun to be a part of that and tip the hat to that. You know, and keep that tradition alive.
Chris Stapleton
At the end of the day, I just have to do what I do and let it be what it's gonna be.
I can only be me. I have a hard time being a chameleon as a singer.
I think the path is different for everybody. Go after the doors that are open to you. That has always been my motto getting into the music business. Do the things that seem to be good opportunities and work hard at it. Try to make good decisions and be nice. Hopefully all of that will pay off at some point.
I grew up less than a mile from folks that lived in shacks with dirt floors. I certainly know that there are needs in this country. Not too far from your house, if you look around, people need to be helped.
A lot of great bluegrass comes out of Kentucky. There's a lot of great music, like the Judds, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ricky Skaggs, and Keith Whitley. There's a lot of bluegrass intertwined with country music.
I like to put something on and want to listen to it again once I get done listening to it, not feel like I need an ear break.
I was a car salesman, if you can believe it.
I didn't have any expectations with 'Traveller' - I don't think anybody did. That's how I prefer the process to be.
It's such a strange marriage, a song and someone that sings it. When that works, it really works, and when it doesn't, it doesn't.
America's military allow the rest of us to do what we do.
I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'm not Chuck Berry or Bill Monroe. Guys like that are from outer space.
I'm always trying to do as many different things as I can, just so when one is not doing so hot, maybe the other is still there.
Everybody likes to listen to a song because it's fun, and nobody wants to sit around and listen to 'I-really-have-to-analyze-these-lyrics' songs all the time.
You always hope for the best when you put something out and try to make the best music you can make, but you can't control what happens after that.
I don't make records to win awards. I make records to make records and hopefully make the records as good as they can be.
I just try to make the best music that I can. People are going to label it whatever they're going to label it.
Among my dad's generation, when you gave another man a pocketknife as a gift, it was a show of respect. I'll still give someone the knife out of my pocket.
I'm not a hustler. I don't pitch songs. I don't ask people to write with me. It's not what I do.
My wife has great taste in everything but men. The vast majority of the songs on my debut album, 'Traveller,' came from lists she made.
If you think about what everyone else will think, you forget to just make music.
I love music so much, and I love musicians - I love singers. It's fun. That's what music's supposed to be. Fun.
If you go in RCA A, you'll realize that it's not just a Nashville thing. It's a studio that belongs to music.
For me, the more time you can take and the more care you can take with songs, the better off you're going to be.
I'm not going to ask musicians to sit there and pretend to play. It feels insulting to the musicians to me.
I was in a bluegrass band. I made two records with a band called the SteelDrivers. They were nominated for two Grammys. I then I was in a rock band called the Junction Brothers; we made kind of '70s hard rock music.
My favorite record of all time is Tom Petty's 'Wildflowers.' I hold it as the standard - in terms of sonics, sequencing, and songs. It shows that making a complete record is important, rather than just making a single.
I went to college a little bit, and that didn't work out, and I didn't finish. So, I would play in bars until I ran out of money, and then I'd get a real job.
I always tell people, 'The music's free. I get paid to travel.'
In the kind of fast-food world that we live in, where everything's so fast paced and it's, 'Look over here! Look over there,' we don't really take the time to sit down and enjoy music - or anything else, for that matter.
I want the dude in the top row to feel like he's down there on the front row in a club.
It's a unique thing, and it's probably the thing I love most about songs and music - their ability to connect in a human way.
I'm a fan of polarization. If you make something that is palatable to everybody, it's like making vanilla ice cream, and I think we have enough of that.
I moved to Nashville to be a songwriter. I found out that was a job, that someone would pay you to sit in a room with a guitar and make up songs! It is the greatest job in the world. I wrote three or four songs a day. That's what I lived for.
I think it's OK if somebody likes my music and likes Sam Hunt's music, too. And I think if we're both selling records, it's good for everybody. I think it allows other records to get made.
I walked into a demo session one time, and a guy said, 'I'm thinking kind of like a Trace Adkins thing.' And I looked him right in the eye and said, 'Man, you've got the wrong guy. I'm gonna have to fire myself. You've got to hire somebody else.'
Country music is one of those places where we support each other and prop each other up.
I had a beard way before it was fashionable.
My dad was a very straight arrow, prayed-at-every-meal kind of guy.
I was in a band called the SteelDrivers, and we just played hard in vans, hopping on airplanes, not knowing where you're at.
I was born in Fayette County, over in Lexington, Kentucky, but I was raised most of my life in Paintsville.
It is a really interesting to hear yourself on the radio. I've gotten to hear myself in different capacities. I've heard myself on Sirius XM on the bluegrass channels, and on WSM and other places.
The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.
I don't look at family and what I do for a living as separate things. They're all kind of one thing, and this is part of their life just like it's part of mine.
I like songs that make me feel tough. Like 'Back in Black.' You want to hear it again and get in a fight.
I like things that don't sound particularly processed or mechanical or made by machines. I like music that contains human elements, with all their flaws. There's air in it, and you can hear a room of a bunch of guys playing. Those are the magic parts.
We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre.
I like to put a record on and then listen to it again and then sit down and make my friends listen to it.
Anytime that another artist or a critic that is well-respected says something nice about you, you're always thankful and hope that you can live up to that.
Music is not a game to me. I take it very seriously.
