Chris Stapleton: Recording Albums in ‘That Sweet Spot’

Chris Stapleton’s From A Room Vol. 2 is nominated for Album of the Year at Sunday’s (4/7) ACM Awards and if he wins he gets a trophy to match the one he won for From A Room Vol. 1, which took home the ACM Album honor last year.

Stapleton released the collection of songs in May of 2017, followed by Volume 2 in December of the same year. The album takes its name from Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A (the capital “A” in “From A Room”) where it was recorded in 2016 with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb.

He talked about the names saying, “That whole room is a sweet spot. I’m also a fan of studios that have a sound. Over time, there have been places that have sounds, you know, Capitol out in L.A. or Muscle Shoals. You can point to places that have sounds – Stax, Motown – these places have sounds, not just by the guys playing ‘em, but the actual sound of the room. The room’s become part of the band. Here in town, the place that has the most of that kind of mojo to me is that room, so that’s what I like about it.”

He's glad that his albums resonate beyond the singles. “We’re all incredibly fortunate that out on the road that the people who come out to the shows dig that deep. It sure is a powerful thing when you can pull out an album cut and have everybody sing along and have somebody be excited about it or watch that be somebody’s song they were hoping you were going to play that night. I care about the album, quite a bit, and I kind of learned that from Tom Petty. He made my favorite record of all time, which was Wildflowers, and that album really made me appreciate the album, top to bottom.”

He said it might be a while before he releases more music, “I like the creative process, and I like to do things just because I like to do them. I’ve got a couple of songs in some movies and some different collaborations with some people that are on the horizon. But as far as a project for me, I don’t know what that next thing is. It’ll probably be a minute, because two records in a year is a lot…It’s been great, and it was a good plan, and I’m real happy with the way things are turning out. But we’ll probably not be recording anything real soon.”

Stapleton’s From A Room Vol. 2 is nominated for ACM Album of the year alongside Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour, Dierks Bentley's The Mountain, Eric Church’s Desperate Man and Dan + Shay’s self-titled album.

The ACM Awards will air live on CBS this Sunday (4/7). Chris will be performing on the show.

-Nancy Brooks