DIERKS BENTLEY AND CHRIS STAPLETON ARE ALREADY CMA WINNERS FOR MUSICAL EVENT AND MUSIC VIDEO.

Artists: Chris Stapleton; Dierks Bentley

Even though the CMA Awards aren’t airing until tonight, a couple of awards have already been announced.

Dierks Bentley picked up his first award of the day for Musical Event of the Year for their No. 1 hit, “Different for Girls,” featuring Elle King. The award is a first for Elle, and the third career win for Dierks. He previously won the Horizon Award (now New Artist of the Year) in 2005 and Music Video of the Year for “Drunk on a Plane” in 2014.

He and Elle will perform together tonight at the CMA Awards.

Chris Stapleton, who won four awards last year, takes home Music Video of the Year for “Fire Away.” The clip, directed by Tim Mattia and starring Ben Foster (Inferno, Lone Survivor, Six Feet Under) and Margarita Levieva (The Blacklist, Revenge) (pr. Le-vee-va), was used as a conduit to help bring mental health awareness to light. In the video, a young couple battle with the woman’s mental issues until it finally drives her to commit suicide.

“It’s a subject matter that is very close to me and means a lot to me, and to be able to tell that story and to share it with so many people and to bring that character to life for me was tremendously important,” says Margarita. “So, as soon as I heard the whole outline and how we were going to shoot it and the story that we’re going to tell, I was immediately drawn and really looking forward to doing it.”

Chris, who is also up for several other CMA Awards including Entertainer of the Year, is currently sitting inside the Top 20 on the country charts with his latest single, “Parachute,” a song from his CMA award-winning album, Traveller.

The 50th annual CMA Awards will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Wednesday (November 2nd) at 8pm ET on ABC.

Dierks Bentley (Elle King) OC: …new place. :36
“Well, I love Elle King’s voice. I mean she has such a unique voice, and you never know if her voice is going to blend with your voice. I didn’t found out until I went down to the studio in Austin, and right away it was just a really natural sounding blend. Her voice just lifted up this song. The lyrics of this song are pretty strong and her voice on this particular song really takes the song to a whole other level. I really wanted to find a way for her not to just be background vocals. I wanted to find a way to really get her included in the song, so I gave her the second verse and made the song more of a conversation as opposed to just background vocals. And it really, it just took the song to a whole new place.”

Elle King (Different for Girls) OC: …song with him. 1:08
“The song itself, it’s an interesting take on a breakup or relationship song. I don’t know if this is why Dierks wanted me to sing on it, you know, besides just my voice, I think I take a really interesting writing approach with my songs about breakups, and I write often from the male perspective. And this song is really thinking about how different men and women are through a breakup, and so I was really excited to be a part of someone else’s song that’s kind of jumping outside the norm of a breakup song or a relationship song. I think it’s got a sweetness to it. The lyrics of this song are really smart, so I thought that it was kind of just a good fit, and I really do want to break out in the country world, because I love country music, not just because I play the banjo. I love country music, and I really love that he’s bringing like a lot of attitude, and I think comedy, to modern country. So, I was really excited to sing this song with him.”

Chris Stapleton (Fire Away video) OC: …grew from there. :25
“The song is kinda about loving somebody unconditionally through not so easy times. The concept of the video kind of came to me as that would be the hardest possible space in which to love somebody. I’ve been a huge fan of Ben’s [Foster] for a long time and so we tried to track him down and he was kind enough to take the phone call. And then it kind of grew from there.”

Chris Stapleton (Fire Away video) 2 OC: …in the world. :29
“I wanted to get real actors and not spend a lot of time making it a promo video for me, and that was how I wanted to make a video, because I felt like that it was more artful and meaningful on the backend. That was the thing – it was just a notion, and then it became real and useful and something that can hopefully make the world a better place through putting the notion out in the world.”