Chris Stapleton

“I like more of the club mentality, where we're playing, and if we feel like we want to play a cover, we'll switch to that.”

“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.”

“I've always been in touring bands in some capacity.”

“I am always interested in making myself as uncomfortable as I can. Sometimes I ask myself, 'Can I stand onstage and sing this song and sell it?' Sometimes I can't. In a room, you get to pretend a little bit and step outside of yourself.”

“There are great songs out there, and if I love them, and I know them, I'm going to sing them just because that's what songs are for.”

“I always like to write the songs, and they get turned loose into the world, and who knows what happens to them. That's the joy of being a songwriter. You get to hear what other people do, interpretation-wise.”

“Great musicians are great musicians, whether they're playing a trombone or an electric guitar or a xylophone.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My earliest memories of music are probably my dad listening to a bunch of outlaw country, but also old R&B and Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin. But, you know, I had rock phases and liked more modern R&B acts. I've always listened to all kinds of music, and I like all kinds of music.”

“I think, at some point, all of us - I'm gonna speak personally, not for everybody else - you're gonna feel like a one-trick pony, and you might even be a one-trick pony. But at some point, if it's a really good trick, everybody's still gonna appreciate it.”

“I can only be me. I have a hard time being a chameleon as a singer.”

“I was born in Fayette County, over in Lexington, Kentucky, but I was raised most of my life in Paintsville.”

“I just try to make the best music that I can. People are going to label it whatever they're going to label it.”

“If there's one kind of music that makes somebody happy, how is that a bad thing? And if there's another kind that makes somebody else happy, how is that a bad thing? I don't get why anybody cares about what they don't like so much.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I didn't know they would pay you money to sit in a room and write songs for other people. I always thought that George Strait was singing a song, he made it up, and that was the end of it. But the instant I found that out, that that could be a job, I thought, 'That's the job for me. I gotta figure out how to do that.'”

“If you think about what everyone else will think, you forget to just make music.”