Chris Stapleton played five arenas in the UK last week on a tour called the National Roadshow. The poster featured his handsome, bearded face in a cowboy hat, surrounded by red, white, and blue hills and a sky. At first listen, his country music seems entirely American. The 46-year-old has been writing and singing about women, heartbreak and drinking for more than 20 years. Only Whiskey spawned Tennessee Whiskey (originally recorded by David Allan Coe), Whiskey and You, Whiskey Sunrise, and his version of Willie. Nelson’s Whiskey River. Stapleton recently launched her own brand, Traveller. He sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl and performed a duet with Taylor Swift. As we discuss the elections scheduled for November, you can almost hear the cry of a bald eagle proclaiming, “I vote for America and a glass of good whiskey.”
But Stapleton, a true American superstar with 10 Grammy Awards and 22 million monthly listeners on Spotify, is considerably more complex than your average truck-driving country singer and defies stereotypes. I know. His atmospheric 2020 song “Hillbilly Blood,” more a series of Southern Gothic-style episodes than a country number, was “born from a pretty mean-sounding riff” and was inspired by his hometown of Kentucky. It was inspired by. “People from where I come from are sometimes looked down upon for not being educated, not being smart, not having a lot of money,” he says.
On his biggest recent hit, “White Horse,” he sounds like a classic, macho country rocker, but until you realize he’s running away from love and on the heroic “White Horse,” he sounds like a classic, macho country rocker. I’m afraid of becoming a cowboy who rides off into the sunset. In addition to Swift’s duet, there is also a duet with Metallica. And while country peers such as Jason Aldean have recently grappled with aggressive nationalism, Stapleton has spoken out about the 2017 mass shooting at Las Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest Festival that left 60 people dead. He writes songs like the fierce anthem “Watch You Burn”. “Sometimes it’s important to write songs that are timely,” he said by phone. “Part of our duty as songwriters is to connect with people in their anger and frustration.”
Stapleton and Pink in New York during their Beautiful Trauma World Tour in 2019. Photo: Zachary Mazur/WireImage
But he certainly has typical country roots. While Loretta Lynn sang about being a coal miner’s daughter, Stapleton was the son of a coal miner, and his mother worked for the local health department. He grew up in Staffordville, a small “three stoplight” rural town. There, “the Friday night football game was the biggest gathering of the week, and Sunday was church. It was something like that.”
His earliest musical memories are of playing guitar with his uncle and his father playing outlaw country and old R&B in the car. “When mom wasn’t in the car, it was probably a little louder than the kids needed,” Stapleton says. “But he loved listening to music, and a lot of my love for music probably comes from there.”
He went to Nashville to study biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, then switched to business school, but “had no interest in any of that. In fact, I had a very strong disinterest.” Having taught himself to play guitar to a reasonable standard, he realized he could pursue a career in music when he met a salaried songwriter at EMI around the turn of the millennium. “I didn’t think it was a job,” he says. He believed that if someone was singing a song, it was written by them. “I didn’t know there was a whole community of people like Song Factory behind the scenes. I fell in love with it right away and said, ‘This is what I need.’ .”
“Sometimes it’s important to write songs that are timely.” Photo: David McClister
Over the next decade or so, Stapleton would go on to become a prolific performer, from old country stars (Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, George Strait) to new country stars (Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Blake Shelton). He gained a reputation as a versatile songwriter. In 2015, the song “South Side,” co-written with Thomas Rhett, will be seen performed by an animated rodent in “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip.” I was blessed with the honor. Stapleton had become Nashville’s other song factory, and though he thinks he wrote more than 1,000 songs, he never felt like “a cog in a machine.” It wasn’t very romantic or sexy, but it was romantic. It’s been an absolute honor to dig in with all the people I’ve ever had the pleasure of digging with, some of the best of the best in country music songwriters. It was like “the art behind the art.” ”
In this environment, Stapleton never felt the need to play himself. – However, he had many “perfectly good songs left unattended and wasted.” There he formed a bluegrass band called the Steel Drivers, and later formed a southern rock band, the Johnpson Brothers, before embarking on a solo career. “My wife thought I was crazy because my income dropped so much when I went on tour,” he says. “I probably gave up 40 percent of my income just because I wasn’t as committed to writing.”
The title track from Stapleton’s debut album, “Traveller,” was written in 2013 while he and his wife, singer-songwriter Morgan Stapleton, were driving through New Mexico (they worked at neighboring publishing companies). We met when we were both working together, got married in 2007, and now have five children). . This road trip was her idea. She spent $10,000 on a Jeep in Phoenix, Arizona, and the 1,600-mile drive to Nashville would be a welcome distraction for Stapleton, who had just lost her father. “In many ways, this entire record was dedicated to him,” Stapleton says. “I tried to make the record he would have wanted me to make. I miss my dad so much. He couldn’t see what we were doing now. I didn’t even have to have that concept. And you know, I think that’s difficult.”
Traveler initially made little headway on mainstream country radio. “It wasn’t single bass,” Stapleton says. “We were going to play a show there, which was unusual.” But then the 2015 Country Music Association Awards were presented. Stapleton, 37, joined Morgan and Justin Timberlake on stage for a performance of Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey and Timberlake’s Drink You Away. Stapleton’s soulful voice and dark stage presence were so shocking that the audience was stunned. The day before, many concerts were held with half of the tickets sold. “The next day, they were all gone,” he says. “I knew there was a different ballgame for sure.” Traveler re-entered the Billboard album chart at No. 1 and has now sold more than 6 million copies in the United States.
Stapleton’s rise came at a time when Nashville was dominated by the Brotherhood. This upbeat pop subgenre is sung by young men in double denim who are into trucks, women, beer, and parties. Labels and listeners were desperate for something fresh, and Stapleton’s music — a cocktail of rock, Americana, bluegrass, R&B, and soul — showed a rare vulnerability in his lyrics and raw expressiveness in his voice. was what everyone was looking for, and so was his music. Look: Part biker, part throwback to the outlaw country stars of the ’70s. He believes that the essence of country music is “storytelling,” and his Grammy-winning “You Should Better Leave” is an example of his own talent in that regard. The song crackles with shame and eroticism as the ex-lovers try and fail to resist temptation. tension.
Stapleton has become something of a rarity: a crossover country superstar. Ed Sheeran and Adele approached him as a collaborator. Busloads of tourists started arriving twice a day in front of his Nashville home (“It made me feel a little anxious”), while one fan drove across two states. , “Just randomly showed up in my driveway. It’s a level of fandom that I just don’t understand. Sometimes you might not want to be ‘on’, like when you’re trying to eat lunch with the kids.” . But that comes with the territory. ” His mother is clearly used to his fame, and before one award ceremony, “I was talking to her on the phone and she said, “Now go win an award and have fun!” ” he said. As if that was a foregone conclusion. She has too much pride. ” And that night, you won? “Maybe!” he says with a laugh.
“I knew it was going to be a different ballgame, for sure…” Justin Timberlake and Stapleton at the 2015 CMA Awards Ceremony Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images
By 2023, a GQ headline asks, “Is Chris Stapleton the one America can agree on?” Despite his occasionally angry and destructive songwriting, , has cultivated universal admiration for his very even-keeled approach.
Regarding the pressure on celebrities to support presidential candidates, he said: There’s also the right to keep it private, to let politicians be politicians, and to let people make their own choices based on what they say and do…I think that’s American, too. He doesn’t pay any attention to the culture wars or online discourse (“I don’t care about that”), and notes that country has been booming on the pop charts lately thanks to Beyoncé, Shabuzi, Dasha, etc. Even in the midst of it, he says: Welcoming newcomers: “I’m not interested in the concept of drawing lines or saying you can’t join because you’re from a different place.”
He respects and is moved by the soldiers and “all the civil servants” who “protect and protect.” When asked if country music has a problem with intolerance and sexism, last year’s country chart-topper Maren Morris distanced herself from the scene, citing misogyny and participation in the culture wars. However, he made unspecific accusations as a politician. “There’s intolerance and sexism everywhere…If you think it doesn’t exist, you’re kidding yourself.”
Tennessee whiskey.
For Stapleton, American values are about “fairness and defending those who can’t protect themselves or standing up for each other.” “It’s about coming together and understanding perspectives that are different from your own. American values would be for someone who grew up in a city to sit down and talk to someone like me who wasn’t from a city. Still, we… We can find common ground.”
The stakes in next month’s election are so high that some may find Stapleton to be as evasive as the protagonist of his song “White Horse.” But he aims to be red, white, and blue, not red, white, and blue, as these tour posters suggest. “I don’t think all Americans can agree with me,” he continued, quoting the GQ headline. “But I take it. If that’s true, I think that’s great, because I think we need more things that we can agree on.”
Traveler Whiskey is now available
