Chris Stapleton talks about his long journey to 'overnight' country sensation

Chris Stapleton is the Nashville overnight sensation who, naturally, has been working for most of this millennium to step out of the shadows and into the mainstream.

The 38-year-old, cowboy-hat-wearing Kentuckian with the bushy beard and burly, luxuriously soulful voice was the surprise big winner at last fall's Country Music Association Awards, where he sang his signature, slow-burning version of the George Jones hit "Tennessee Whiskey" as a duet with his pal Justin Timberlake.

That led to a Grammy album of the year nomination for Traveller, his 2015 solo debut album, which put Stapleton's name in lights after years of having his songs recorded by a wide range of artists, including Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, and Adele. Traveller was produced by Dave Cobb, the leading knob-twiddler among new Nashville prestige Americana acts, such as Alabama native and ace songwriter Jason Isbell.

Isbell and Stapleton, who's touring with a band that includes his recording-artist wife, Morgane ("We're partners in every sense," he says), will play Friday at Festival Pier. The show was originally scheduled for the smaller Riverstage at Penn's Landing, but has been moved to the larger venue.

Word-slinging, working-class British songwriter Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls are also on the bill. Stapleton spoke on the phone last week before a show at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville.

You did pretty good at the Country Music Television awards the other night, getting breakthrough video of the year for "Fire Away." But you didn't clean up the way you did at the CMA awards.

We were really fortunate. That was a good night. I was shocked to even be nominated and to win any of them, let alone all of the ones we were nominated for.

That's changed your life, I would guess.

It flipped the switch. It meant we could play bigger venues. And there was a huge record-sales impact. It made a big difference.

You grew up in Kentucky. How rural was it?

It was in eastern Kentucky. A really small town, about 200 people. My dad was a coal miner. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she worked as a clinical dietitian. We all played music, but my brother and sister just went on to do other things.

What did you listen to as a teenager in the early '90s?

I listened to a little bit of everything. But the one that really got me was the Tom Petty Wildflowers record. I have a theory that everybody has one record that they compare all other records to, and that one's it for me. To have a love for a record from top to bottom, and sit down and listen to it and not skip over any track.

You studied engineering at Vanderbilt. Did you quit to play music full time?

I just quit college because I wasn't into it. It didn't seem like I was learning anything I was going to do the rest of my life. And I was fine with that ... It just wasn't for me. I think finding out what you're not supposed to be doing is as important as finding out what you are supposed to be doing.

You went home to Kentucky and, eventually, came back to Nashville and worked as a songwriter at a publishing house. How'd that happen?

I drove an ice truck. I had all kinds of odd jobs. I played bars till I ran out of money, and then would find some job that I got out of the paper. That was my MO for a while.

Then I met a guy who was a salaried songwriter at EMI. I didn't know that was a job you could have. I thought, "That's the job I want, where you can sit in an office all day and make things up."

The songs on Traveller tend to be direct. They don't try to be clever the way a lot of what you hear on country radio does. When you write for other artists, do you take a different approach?

Not really. They're all just the songs that I wrote. I try to use economy of language. Make your words mean something instead of just string a bunch of extraneous things together. Is my music slightly different than what is currently thought of as the norm for the mainstream? Yeah, maybe. But if you go back 10 or 15 years, it wouldn't be.

You played in different bands on your way up. How has your songwriting changed?

The Steel Drivers were a bluegrass band, so half the songs were about prison and murder. And the Jompson Brothers songs were about sex and drugs and rock-and-roll, because that's what we thought rock-and-roll was supposed to be.

I've tried everything at least once. Demo singer. Sang for commercials, radio spots. I really like writing songs and I like touring and I like being in a band. And, no offense to solo artists, but I believe bands make better music. So I still like to function a whole lot like a band.

Before Traveller, you recorded another solo album that was never released. What happened with that?

It was different, kind of a Midwestern rock record. I had a single on the radio, but it died at No. 47. My dad passed away and my single died in the very same month. I took that as a sign from the universe to reassess what I was doing and what I should be doing. And that's kind of got us to this record. All those things kind of converged.

I know you wrote the song "Traveller" around that time. "I'm just a traveler on this earth ... I'll just keep rollin' till I'm in the dirt." Did the rest come at the same time?

No, that was the only one. The rest were cherry-picked. "Fire Away" is at least 14 years old. "Daddy I Don't Pray Anymore" was written in 2006. They were just songs that were sitting on the shelf like a bottle of wine, waiting for the right time to be used - whether it's me or somebody else.

[With Traveller] I just went to Universal with the request to make a record and go play. That's all I've ever done. Put it out, and people can take it home with them. That was my notion. We've done that and had some good things happen. And here we are talking about it.

The stars align sometimes. It's not like I had any magic epiphany, other than, "Just make music that you like, and hopefully somebody else will like it." We struck a chord with some people, and we're grateful for it.

Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Frank Turner, and the Sleeping Souls, 6 p.m. Friday, Festival Pier at Penn's Landing, $45, 800-745-3000, festivalpierphilly.com, livenation.com.

ddeluca@phillynews.com
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