Chris Stapleton Tips Hat to Legends, Performs “Either Way” on Charlie Rose
Chris Stapleton’s latest album From A Room: Vol. 1 sits poised to take the #1 spot on the Billboard Country Albums chart next week, and is battling with Logic’s Everybody for #1 all genre, while his newest single “Either Way” was the most added song last week on country radio. Though publicity has been somewhat light for the record, Stapleton did sit down with Charlie Rose on Thursday (5/12) for a lengthy discussion, and to perform the acoustic “Either Way.”
In the interview, Charlie Rose tried to portray Chris Stapleton as “Country’s Reigning Outlaw” based off of Rollings Stone’s recommendation, which Stapleton responded to with an “Eh…,” and didn’t appear to be too comfortable with. Though he did give deference to all the great country Outlaws who came before him, Stapleton also, as he’s done before, revealed that the fight against pop or other influences in country is not one he’s willing to wage, even though others tend to want to assign that to his music.
“I’m not much of an Outlaw,” Stapleton says. “I certainly always have a tip of the hat to and have in my mind Waylon and Willie and Merle Haggard and that era of music. It’s a lot of my favorite things. There were a lot of things musically they were doing right. And not that there’s a right and wrong, but things that I prefer … Just being themselves, and doing what feels good to them versus trying to be what somebody else was doing.”
When Rose asked Stapleton if he saw himself as an entry back to the Outlaw era, Stapleton replied,
“I don’t know that I would be an entry back, but I certainly wouldn’t mind be viewed as a bridge. I’m not going to put myself in any kind of a sentence with those guys. But yeah, I think it’s important for me personally to always kind of have a tip of the hat to those guys, but also old R&B singers; Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin. I like all kinds of music.”
On the complaints about the direction of modern country, Stapleton compared it to not liking sushi, but not feeling the need to criticize the people who do.
“That’s how a lot of the chatter around music feels to me when one kind of music is right, and another kind of music is wrong,” Stapleton says. “If music makes somebody feel good and they enjoy it, that’s cool, that’s great for them. And if you don’t like to listen to something, turn to something else that you do like. It doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with someone that likes a different kind of music. That’s so weird to me … There’s always been elements of whatever pop music was in country music, and it’s always kind of rolled over. It’s this pendulum that swings back and forth. I don’t think that’s a new conversation. There’s always going to be those two sides of the coin in country music.”
Stapleton’s performance, and the whole interview can be seen below.
May 12, 2017 @ 11:25 am
Just give it time. Sturgill used to avoid that pop-country fight, too…until 2016. I’d like to think Stapleton’ll come around join the fight at some point as well.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:47 pm
I think Sturgill is back to avoiding it, from everything I have seen in any recent interviews. I think the facebook post about the Merle Haggard debacle was about the last time. Probably a smart move career wise, as he no longer needs the free publicity.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:54 pm
Wasn’t he just making fun of the ACM’s on twitter a month or so ago? That he “dodged a corny bullet” by not getting nominated. And there was his line about “I guess the revolution will not be televised” back at the Grammy’s.
May 12, 2017 @ 1:11 pm
Didn’t he also come out against being called country’s savior and said that’s not him and everybody should make the type of music they like?
It doesn’t seem like Sturgill or Chris have a problem with pop country or the people who perform it, it’s more the fans wishful thinking.
May 12, 2017 @ 7:40 pm
Diehard Jamey Johnson fans told me that Jamey was the new savior of country music 🙂 A reincarnation of Waylon! The second coming of Hank! 🙂 A female writer at wide open country just wrote an article about him a couple weeks ago. Here’s a actual quote from that article. “Jamey Johnson is, no doubt, the current king of country music. The crown has been passed and the ruler has set the bar of excellence.” I swear that’s an actual quote. Anyway, How long has it been since an original album of Jamey’s? 7 years? But don’t dare mention that to them or they claim you’re just a Sam hunt fan trolling lol
May 12, 2017 @ 1:37 pm
He did. I should have clarified….I think he is done going out of his way to bash and talk down the industry in an aggressive way like he did in the Merle tribute comments, or as he has done in the past from on stage. I have also heard sturgill make a few comments on pod casts and article interviews that essentially say “to each their own, they are doing their own thing and I will do mine” when he is pushed by the interviewer to speak his mind on pop country.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:50 pm
I totally understand Stapleton’s sushi analogy. It’s okay for people to like different types of music. My analogy would be what if you went out to a steakhouse and ordered a steak, and they served you sushi and made you eat it. That’s basically what happens when a true country fan turns on the radio or the CMA’s.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:55 pm
Exactly
May 12, 2017 @ 2:15 pm
To be at least moderately fair to country radio and the CMA’s, yes some of what you get is you walk into a sushi restaurant and they serve you steak. But mostly it’s you walk into a sushi restaurant and they serve you the tuna roll, and will only serve the tuna roll, over and over again. It’s the safest most watered down choice…and they refuse to have variety.
May 12, 2017 @ 8:03 pm
I wonder though is that the fault of the restaurant or the customers who keep coming back for more tuna?
Rightly or wrongly it seems that radio plays what the masses want to hear. Something you can sing along to in the car. Nobody really sits down ar home anymore and turns on the radio. Streaming and iTunes took care of that.
May 13, 2017 @ 6:52 pm
If the restaurant is the only one in town, you either eat what they serve or cook it yourself. A lot of people are just too lazy to cook. I listen to iTunes, etc. at home, but I buy CDs and listen to them on the road. I can do that because the only albums I buy are the ones that I like well enough to listen to every song. When I do listen to radio – very rarely – it’s stations that play the classics, or I find a station online that plays something more to my liking.
May 12, 2017 @ 3:44 pm
And since it’s a steakhouse the sushi sucks anyway because they don’t know how to prepare as good as a sushi place.
May 13, 2017 @ 8:14 am
But suppose it was a Japanese steakhouse?
May 13, 2017 @ 3:31 pm
Ahhhh, but what if it’s a Japanese steakhouse located in America which purports to serve a fusion of vegan-styled Japanese, Thai and Mediterranean steak because “red meat must evolve”?
May 13, 2017 @ 2:55 pm
My analogy would be what if you went out to a steakhouse and ordered a steak, and they served you sushi and made you eat it.
And that’s the one Stapleton should have been making, honestly, as opposed to the one he has been making.
May 14, 2017 @ 1:18 am
“Just being themselves, and doing what feels good to them versus trying to be what somebody else was doing.”
Damn right Chris. We need more artists who will not bow to the latest trend and listen to their muse. The great artists have always been the ones who forge their own path and in doing so have left an indelible mark on their chosen artistic endeavor.
“If music makes somebody feel good and they enjoy it, that’s cool, that’s great for them.”
I am not going to begrudge somebody for liking something I do not. Everybody has their own tastes. What I can not stand is that mainstream music across the board has become largely mind numbing drivel. The era of well written intelligent songs sung with passion seems to have passed. Now all we have is the flavor of the day and most of this generation of music will be relegated to the dustbin of musical history. Where are this generation’s Ray Charles’s Merle Haggard’s and Bruce Springsteen’s ? These artists will be played for decades to come not Sam Hunt and company.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:26 pm
I may be the only one that feels this way, but I feel like Chris Stapleton can’t win no matter what he does. If he doesn’t speak out against pop country then he’s criticized for not doing enough, but if he does speak out against pop country I feel like people just point fingers and say “hey Chris Stapleton you’ve written some of the biggest pop country hits of the past decade how are you any better than those people?” I feel like the best way to combat pop country is to just make quality country music so that people can hear that there’s a better alternative out there, and that’s exactly what Chris Stapleton is doing. He doesn’t need to speak out against the state of modern country music because he can fix it through his music.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:47 pm
Yeah, I honestly respect the hell out of the fact that he doesn’t pretend to be some Cherlene-esque “OUTLAW COUNTRY” guy.
He just does his thing, and makes the music he wants to make.
And it’s good.
May 12, 2017 @ 8:03 pm
“WOOOOOOOOOOO, OUTLAW COUNTRY!!!”
May 12, 2017 @ 12:48 pm
I think the best thing for Stapleton to do is to be himself. I think it’s against his nature to be combative. I think he’s a “go along to get along” guy, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. He shouldn’t feel obligated to roast Sam Hunt just because his fans want him to, or just because that’s how the media wants to portray him. The whole line of questioning of Stapleton from Charlie Rose was predicated on the Rolling Stone review of “From A Room.” I don’t blame Rose for that, he’s a busy guy, and Rolling Stone is supposed to be a trusted voice in music journalism. But that review compares Stapleton to Waylon via somewhat shallow observances, which is unfair to Stapleton and Waylon. If you know Stapleton, you know he avoids those fights. Like you said, Stapleton will lead with his music, which is what every artist should do. Whether they speak up or not is not a requirement, especially if they don’t feel it in their heart.
May 12, 2017 @ 5:41 pm
Poor Waylon; gets all the comparisons. You don’t hear many Willie, Merle or Cash comparisons. Everyone’s Waylon….long live the king
May 12, 2017 @ 11:12 pm
The Waylon comparisons have made Waylon into a caricature. He’s just this angry, combative guy that all he did was bitch all the time about pop country. Listen to his music, and it tells a completely different story.
May 13, 2017 @ 12:23 pm
It don’t matter who’s in Austin.
May 12, 2017 @ 12:32 pm
I hate sushi haha
May 12, 2017 @ 1:02 pm
Whatever anyone has to say about Chris Stapleton, be it good or bad, one thing I don’t think you could ever say is that he is in this because he is attention hog. He comes across as one of the most humble, respectful and genuine people I have every seen and doesn’t really seem all that comfortable with all the attention and accolades Charlie Rose is giving him. With some of these artists you can almost see their heads swell when they get compliments like this even though they play up the ‘Aww shucks, I’m just a simple country boy at heart’ routine.
May 12, 2017 @ 2:13 pm
In retrospect the album roll out doesn’t bother me nearly as much. Yes the ACM’s thing was a total botch, but getting the iheart hourly debut when the album dropped is a great move, especially for an artist who hasn’t done great at radio. He’s also spread out his promo appearances (fallon last tuesday for instance, with Rose now)…that might lead to slightly lower first week sales, but should help the second week drop-off. Additionally, I’ve seen ads for this album everywhere, continuing into today (flip-over Friday). Multi-week ad buys – that’s splashing a lot of cash.
May 12, 2017 @ 2:31 pm
Agreed. I said last week that they seemed to be turning this around and the Charlie Rose appearance along with Fallon would seem to point to that. Publicity is a long game.
May 12, 2017 @ 5:13 pm
Stapleton started out of the gate way on top of the building albums charts, and now he’s about 25,000 behind. This would denote strong pre-order sales, but no follow through during the week. I normally don’t to “video Posts” of this nature on artist’s public appearances, I just put links in the news crawl. But I was really surprised how little coverage the Charlie Rose appearance was getting. There appears to be no publicist working the day to day information distribution for the project.
May 12, 2017 @ 5:27 pm
The building albums charts is SPS, so it includes streaming….that’s where he fell behind Logic. His final tally though was actually about 20k above the expectation on Friday. On the album sales chart, he is #1.
(they switched lead charts a few months ago on HDD)
May 12, 2017 @ 4:30 pm
I listened to this after reading the article on Midland’s authenticity issue. Stapleton comes across as authentic…straightforward all the way. My first impressions of Stapleton’s music were meh, but this convinced me to give his stuff another try.
May 12, 2017 @ 4:57 pm
Chris will also be on Steve Earles show Sat night on XM.
May 12, 2017 @ 5:01 pm
He also just added a second show at Bridgestone, not too shabby.
May 12, 2017 @ 5:21 pm
“I don’t think that’s a new conversation”
Jesus refreshing. Oldest worn out topic on the block
May 13, 2017 @ 11:19 am
Stapleton is on an Universal label as is Luke Bryan. He can’t come out right and talk about these awful bro COUNTRY stars b/c it would be bad business for Universal.
May 13, 2017 @ 3:46 pm
Personally, I don’t need him to agree to be the savior of country music, to agree he is the savior of country music, or even to agree country music needs saving. He just put out an album of music that sounds authentic and heartfelt, comprised mostly of songs he wrote himself, and on which he plays most of the guitar. Sure, it could’ve been longer and it could’ve been less stylistically varied (i.e. more straight ahead country). Hell, it could’ve been this that or the other thing that everybody on the site seemed to want it to be, but isn’t. …but what it sounds like to me is a guy who made an album he wanted to make without a whole lot of consideration for what his label wanted, what his fans wanted, what would be played on radio, or what the critics expected. For me, that’s all I can hope for from this guy. I think he should just keep cranking out the music the way he wants it to sound. Whether it’s SteelDrivers, Jompson Brothers, him playing his craptastic pop songs acoustically (and they suddenly become great) or his two solo albums that he’s done, I think it’s pretty great. I love his voice, his guitar work and his catchy tunes, regardless of the style that he chooses to present them in. I for one would applaud another Jompson Brothers album! In fact, doing another southern rock album like the Jompson Brothers, and completely defying the expectations of everyone, would be about as outlaw country as you could get, don’t you think?
May 14, 2017 @ 8:24 pm
Trigger, Thanks for the interview clip, it was very interesting. It seems to me that Chris is doing his best not be seen as a pop/bro country “hater” but neither does he want to be heard endorsing that style of music wholeheartedly. Either option could end up alienating some of the very people he seeks to appeal to. I don’t blame him for being very careful about what he says.
May 15, 2017 @ 7:10 am
“It’s this pendulum that swings back and forth.”
So when’s it swinging back, then? I’ve been waiting for the better part of 20 years now and everytime an artist comes along that I think will lead the way, they either end up selling out and becoming part of the problem or fading into obscurity.
May 15, 2017 @ 7:59 am
Radio’s pendulum’s is busted, but the sales pendulum might be a little different, though. Willie Nelson just had Billboard’s #1 country album, Chris will have this week’s #1, and Zac Brown will likely get #1 next week.