Quotes from Tyler Childers

A writer can write an essay, but the writer can never control how that essay is interpreted by the reader.

My first song was a hardcore knock-off of 'Tangled Up in Blue.' It was based on a story maybe I had heard before. I was 13. The woman died in the end - she was sleeping on the railroad tracks. Pretty edgy, ya know.

Where I grew up, I feel lucky to have been from there. The culture in general is rooted with a strong sense of family; of kin; of place, geographically; of tradition. There's a resilience, a strong will to make it. I mean, heck, it was settled by a bunch of outcasts that didn't fit in.

We can start looking for ways to preserve our heritage outside lazily defending a flag with history steeped in racism and treason.

Life is hard enough without being worried about the smallest interaction with a public servant.

I was always writing on something: short stories and journal entries of what had happened that day, always thinking about something to write down.

When I was a little kid, it blew my mind and kind of broke my heart when I found out that the 'Dukes of Hazzard' weren't actually from Hazard, Kentucky.

I remember there were two tapes that my papa had in his truck at all times when I was younger. It was a Ralph Stanley gospel cassette and the 'Hee Haw' gospel album.

Although you'll seldom hear him do it, my dad sings really well. When I was a kid, we'd go hunting, and the old pickup truck had a radio in it. I have a lot of memories of coming home late at night and hearing my dad break out in song.

The problem with country is we've turned the props into the play. Let's not just Solo cup and pickup truck it to death. Let's handle this in a smart way. Nobody is thinking about lyrical content, or how we're moving people, or what's going on in the background of their minds.

I hope that I'm doing my people justice and I hope that maybe someone from somewhere else can get a glimpse of the life of a Kentucky boy.

Songwriting is writing about the human experience.

Songwriting is telling short stories. But instead of 15 to 20 pages, it's three to five minutes.

I've been listening to Stapleton for a long time. He's a hometown guy. I remember when I first heard word of him down there: songwriting and hearing those demos that were used for his publishing house and when he started Steeldrivers.

Born Again' is a love song. It's just these two people - two forms of energy - meeting and losing each other and finding each other again and coming together and being the same thing.

I've been writing a lot of road songs. Writing a lot of homesick songs. But once you start playing them out, it all ain't no secret anymore. Everyone knows how you feel.

I grew up on 23, country music highway, which is a stretch of road where Ricky Skaggs and Dwight Yoakam and Loretta Lynn played. Driving up and down that on the way to school - to baseball games, to anywhere - you see all these signs commemorating these artists. It was a point of pride for my area growing up.

Covid has been a strain on all of us in some form or fashion.

In the midst of our own daily struggles, it's often hard to share an understanding for what another person might be going through.

A lot of times, you'll be flipping through country radio and there's just no substance. Like I've said before, it's all about props: Solo cups or whatever. It's not about a dude's work day or someone that lost a good friend or relative. There's nothing to hold onto when you're going through something.

In my opinion, with political and religious views, how can you 110 percent, full-hearted say without a shadow of a doubt say that this is how I feel, and this is where I want to be in my life, if you haven't looked at it any other way than just one angle?

Long Violent History' is a collection of instrumental pieces intended to create a sonic soundscape for the listener to set the tone to reflect on the last track, which is my own observational piece on the times we are in.

Love each other, no exceptions.