Eric Church’s surprise release, Mr. Misunderstood, Sam Hunt’s Montevallo and Chris Stapleton’s Traveller are up for Album of the Year at this year’s ACM Awards. They’re nominated alongside Thomas Rhett’s Tangled Up and Chris Young’s I’m Coming Over.
Eric says inspiration struck unexpectedly for his Mr. Misunderstood album, and that’s why he ended up with a new album in 10 days. “Really inspiration is kind of what led [to the Mr. Misunderstood album]. I sat down one day to write. I had no intentions and nobody needing an album,” he says. “We’d just finished ‘The Outsiders’ and we’d just finished ‘Wrecking Ball,’ and I was writing and one day led to another day. You get into grooves and inspiration strikes you as a songwriter, and all of a sudden something was happening to me three, four, five days in in a row that had never happened, where every day a song was being written that sounded like a record. All of a sudden I had one, and I knew it, and I decided to go in and just record one song and 10 days later I had an album.”
Sam, who has experienced nearly unequaled success with his debut album, hopes folks listen to the record with open hearts and minds. “The record is hopefully diverse enough to reach people of several different tastes,” he says. “If there is something I could say to someone that was about to listen to this record for the first time, I would hope that they could put aside any preconceived notions or any direction that whatever they have stumbled across before has given them, they could open their mind and just listen to the music with an open mind and open heart and just see how they feel about it; see how it makes them feel.”
Chris Stapleton has had such a huge journey over the past year, and especially the last six months, and his Traveller album has been No. 1 on the country charts nearly every week since the CMA Awards last November. He says the title of the album is quite representative of the songs that appear on the record. “It seemed like a natural thing to call it, because a lot of, certainly the inspiration for this record came from a series of events. It’s kind of the only song that was written inside of, well, there might’ve been one other song written inside of knowing I was going to make this record in this way. The rest of the songs came from outside of that time period,” he says. “So, that’s one reason to name it that. The other reason is that it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It’s about a journey in a musical sense and in a physical sense and in a spiritual sense. In every way that you can have a journey, this record is kind of that for me, and hopefully for some other folks too.”
The 51st Academy of Country Music Awards, hosted by Luke and Dierks Bentley, will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 3rd at 8pm ET/delayed PT on CBS.
Audio / Eric Church explains why he decided to surprise his fans and the industry with his ACM-nominated album, Mr. Misunderstood.
DownloadEric Church (MM album) 2 OC: …80,000 records. 1:11
“Really inspiration is kind of what led [to the Mr. Misunderstood album]. I sat down one day to write. I had no intentions and nobody needing an album. We’d just finished ‘The Outsiders’ and we’d just finished ‘Wrecking Ball,’ and I was writing and one day led to another day. You get into grooves and inspiration strikes you as a songwriter, and all of a sudden something was happening to me three, four, five days in in a row that had never happened, where every day a song was being written that sounded like a record. All of a sudden I had one, and I knew it, and I decided to go in and just record one song and 10 days later I had an album. I didn’t know what to do, you know because our schedule was off and it was supposed to be sometime later this year that you got new music. I decided that, and this was my decision, in the past everything has always been about hype. The label gets it and radio and the press, and the last people to get the record are the fans. And I decided that we should just put it out, but give it to the fans, let them have it first, and we gave away 80,000 records.”
Audio / Sam Hunt explains what he hopes for when people listen to his new album, Montevallo.
DownloadSam Hunt (Montevallo expectations) OC: …makes them feel. :43
“I hope that people, if the give the full album a chance, will have the ability to see what I want to represent as an artist, they will be able to get out of this music what I get out of music that I love, you know? The record is hopefully diverse enough to reach people of several different tastes. If there is something I could say to someone that was about to listen to this record for the first time, I would hope that they could put aside any preconceived notions or any direction that whatever they have stumbled across before has given them, they could open their mind and just listen to the music with an open mind and open heart and just see how they feel about it; see how it makes them feel.”
Audio / Chris Stapleton explains why he felt his album should be titled Traveller.
DownloadChris Stapleton (title of Traveller) OC: …folks too. :43
“The song ‘Traveller’ and how it ended up being the title of the record, it seemed like a natural thing to call it, because a lot of, certainly the inspiration for this record came from a series of events. It’s kind of the only song that was written inside of, well, there might’ve been one other song written inside of knowing I was going to make this record in this way. The rest of the songs came from outside of that time period. So, that’s one reason to name it that. The other reason is that it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It’s about a journey in a musical sense and in a physical sense and in a spiritual sense. In every way that you can have a journey, this record is kind of that for me, and hopefully for some other folks too.”
