Quotes from Chris Stapleton

I always feel that if you're going to cover a song, you should make it your own and flip it on its head.

The curse of being a songwriter is that's you're always at work. I could look out the window right now and see something that would make me want to write.

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 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 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 like the old days when, if I wrote a song and I recorded it, it didn't mean somebody else couldn't record it.

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.

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.

I get tired of people trying to dog out the radio for not playing this or that. There are lots of people who like what they play - otherwise, they wouldn't play it.

Whether you like modern incarnations of what country radio hits are, or you like what I'm doing, or you like something really off in folk, poetry Americana land, it's all just music, man. If you like one of them, great - go buy it.

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'm gonna keep making music that hopefully I think is good, and whatever comes out of that, that will be fine with me.

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.

I'm only worried about what I'm doing or how I present music. I just try to do things I want to listen to, and I think that's what everybody else is try doing, too.

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 used to spend my money on going to Tom Petty concerts.

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 can pass myself off as a 'Duck Dynasty' impersonator a lot.

I write the songs and hand it over to the world and see what happens. But the things that I've written for people that have been hits, I don't know that I would have directed them in the right path, but they definitely wound up on the right path.

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

I like to fish. I collect pocketknives. I inherited a nice collection from my father and grandfather.

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.'

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.

I don't know that my voice ever makes sense anywhere, necessarily. I would sing bluegrass music, and I don't fit in there; I would sing rock music, and I'm probably a little too hillbilly for that. And country, I'm too much rock n' roll for there sometimes.