Chris Stapleton joins Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen to celebrate the release of his album ‘Higher.’ Stapleton shares his admiration for Miranda Lambert’s songwriting, the crucial role his wife and co-producer Morgane plays on his records, and why emulating your heroes isn’t a bad thing.
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Chris Stapleton Tells Apple Music About Writing ‘What Am I Gonna Do' with Miranda Lambert
I don't think people talk about what a great songwriter she is enough. We all know that she's a great singer and entertainer and all those things, but she's a really great country songwriter, and so she and I have written some songs over the years, and I actually called her when we were making this record. I was like, “Hey, do you remember that song?” I could only remember half the song and I didn't have a copy… I was like, “Do you have a copy of this song?” And she was kind enough to go looking for it and digging for it, and she found it and so we could cut it, and that's how it wound up on the record was she was kind enough to dig a little bit.
Chris Stapleton Tells Apple Music the Songwriting Advice His Daughter Gave Him
Who knows how many songs I lost under this philosophy, [but] I used to think if I couldn't remember [a song], it wasn't any good. So there would be things like ideas I wouldn't write down or melodies I wouldn't save. And then if I would wake up the next day and I wouldn't remember it, in my mind… it was not a thing. I don't subscribe to that anymore. My daughter is fooling around with writing songs and she said the exact same thing to me. [She] was like, “No, no, that's not true. If you have something that you think is cool in a moment, just put it down, and… put it in your phone, and it's okay to forget things and then come back to them and go, “Oh, that was cool,” and work on them some more. It's okay.”
Chris Stapleton Tells Apple Music About His Wife, Morgane, Co-Producing ‘Higher’
[Morgane] doesn't like the attention necessarily, and she does it because I do it. She likes to do it with me because I enjoy doing it. She would be very happy staying home and doing mom stuff, and she likes music and she is very passionate about music, but some of the other things that are the work of music are not her favorite, but she's invaluable as well, and she knows that as well, and we make sure that she knows that. That's a hard thing for her to navigate sometimes, to be needed in so many places… we all know that she's the boss in the room, and if it doesn't pass her, it's not going to pass. That's the way it goes.
Chris Stapleton Tells Apple Music About Writing ‘Higher' When He First Moved to Nashville
‘Higher' is a song that's off the first demo session I ever did when I came and moved to town. It's a song I wrote by myself, and it was a step or a step and a half lower at that point in time than this. I tuned down a half step from standard to, I don't know, I think we landed at least a step or a step and a half higher on this just because I was feeling good that day and had it because I'd been working on it. And we haven't recorded this song for any other album. My wife has asked for it for every album.
