Chris Stapleton: Somehow, Winning Awards Still Surprises Him
Chris Stapleton is an award show favorite: he’s won multiple awards at the Grammys, the CMAs and the ACMs. But Stapleton admits that when he does win, he’s always a bit surprised.
Chris goes into this year’s ACM Awards with six nominations including Entertainer of the Year. He’s also nominated twice, as both artist and producer, for Album of the Year for From A Room: Volume 2, an award he won last year for From A Room: Volume 1. Additionally, he’s up for Male Vocalist (which he won last year), as well as Song of the Year as both the artist and songwriter for “Broken Halos.”
“These things are always fantastic to win,” he says. “But when you get nominated or invited to these parties, in my estimation, you’ve already won and you’ve already gotten to be far beyond anything, you know, anybody who’s a musician could ever dream of getting to do, and we get to do that every day, we get to live it every day. As far as thinking about going into anything, I’m always genuinely surprised to win anything, and I’m always grateful for it.”
His ACM Song nominee “Broken Halos” won both Single and Song of the Year at last year’s CMA Awards and it was a big moment for him. Stapleton says, “It’s very meaningful for me because I do consider myself first and foremost a songwriter and to get to do it with a man who was a mentor to me, Mike Henderson…”
He continues: “You know, a lot of things that I try to do on electric guitar, or the ways I try to think lyrically, or I try to get as much information, or he would call it ‘secret knowledge,’ out of him as I can. So, to win awards with him means so very much to me that I’m not even sure I can describe it.”
The 54th Academy of Country Music Awards will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 7th on CBS.
-Nancy Brooks
