I think when you're dealing with any issues about trying to become a better human being, you have to look at a lot of things about yourself that maybe you don't want to or aren't able to.
— Sturgill Simpson
I don't pretend to be an astrophysicist or anything, even though I do read about certain things like metaphysics and cosmology that I've always just been really interested in. I don't pretend to be able to sit down and pontificate on any of these subjects.
Music Row gets dragged through the dirt, but they're just trying to survive.
I'm not meant to sit on the couch and not play music. But I never want to feel like I have to put out a record. I don't want to ever make those records.
I just really want to make - to be cliche about it, I want to make pretty music. Like Roy Orbison or Elvis, man. Those guys made beautiful, tender music.
I fail to see how anything can still be weird in 2016.
London's been really good to me - England as a whole - but the Scots and the Irish especially are very appreciative because that's kind of where it all came from.
Part of me still feels like I've never had the opportunity to properly express all my earliest influences, so for now, I find isolation to be my biggest influence.
I never really had any grand aspirations of mainstream country success because I know what that entails, and I'd probably be too much trouble for people to work with. If I can just reach the point where I can get 200 or 300 people in small clubs and I'm carving out enough money to pay my bills, then I'm the happiest guy I know.
I wanted to make an album that takes a journey through all my favorite periods in music and then culminates in something that will most likely end my career.
I thought it was hilarious when 'Brace for Impact' was released, and people said I had abandoned country, even though the song is dripping with pedal steel. If anything, that tells me I'm making progress.
Even with most finite planning, you never know what the final result will reveal itself to be until it's staring back at you.
I want all that dirt and grime and life-sauce. A lot of my favorite old soul records have it, but you don't hear it on country records anymore.
Kentucky isn't particularly religious.
I want people to focus on listening, not the image. And I want to play to everyone: rednecks, dubstep kids, punk rockers, and people who like as-real-as-it-gets country music.
I grew up listening to everything. I was in rock n' roll bands and punk bands, and I loved bluegrass and country music, too. Then, when I moved to Nashville, I put out a very traditional country record because that's just what you do. I had a bunch of very traditional country songs. Next thing you know, you're a country singer.
Country music especially can get very formulaic - you know, you have to have your verses and a bridge and a chorus, and a lot of the songs are written as just plain and simple poetry on the road.
I've always played music. But you know, in eastern Kentucky, everybody plays music.
You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time - it has to progress or it can't survive.
I'll never get tired of being told I sound like Waylon Jennings, but I don't hear it myself.
I saw Dolly Parton play at the Glastonbury Festival to about 120,000 people. It was an ocean of human beings. I was a mile away from the stage, and I swear to God, I could feel her energy.
That might be completely self-indulgent, to write your first major-label debut as a dedication to your family. But, you know, that's where my heart was.
I find that I have to just kind of avoid the Internet as much as possible. And even more so, when I go and look at it, I remember why I should be avoiding it.
My paternal grandfather, when he was in the army in World War II - he was over in the South Pacific, and he thought he was gonna die. And he wrote a letter to my grandmother and their newborn son, thinking he wasn't gonna come home.
I'm interested in exploring various forms of newer media that might allow those who otherwise don't listen to country to find and connect with my music.
I worked for Union Pacific. I started out as a conductor at an intermodal switching facility outside of Salt Lake City. We'd pull in trains from all over the country, break them apart, consolidate the freight, and build other trains. It was great until I screwed up and took a management position. Then it became no fun very quickly.
There are no expectations other than those I place on myself to be a great father and husband.
Some people will say, and have said, that I'm trying to run from country, but I'm never going to make anything other than a country record.
I'd love to make short film videos pushing the conventional standards of what a country music video can be.
Saviours get crucified.
I pretty much just hang out with the kid. I want, like three more, because that's all I ever want to do.
I walked in, looked around, and the navy recruiter was a really hot brunette, so I signed up with her.
I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don't really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it's a slippery slope.
Back home, playing music is never anything you imagine you can do for a living. It's what you do after work.
Anytime I ever have met someone that was very angry or full of negativity, nine times out of ten, if you really take a good look at that person's life, there's probably not a whole lot of love going on there.
Looking back on it, now I can identify the points in my life when I wasn't playing, and music - and didn't have that outlet - those were the points when I was most unguided and self destructive because I didn't have that channel to get those energies out. I'm a much healthier person when I play music.
The only way I'm going to support my family is to tour. I love playing, don't get me wrong. That 90 minutes every night, that's free. We get paid to travel. But every night, I have to get myself locked in. There are a thousand people that don't want to be disappointed, because they have a lot of expectations.
Fewer and fewer bars are doing live music. Instead it's more DJs and dance parties.
I needed a writing space to get out of my house with the little guy. Because any time I try to write or sit down and do things, he wants to be there with me and play the guitar.
I'm very grateful, but at the same time, I'm glad all this happened when I'm 36 instead of 26 because I - I'm just such a homebody, and I just want to write songs and make the best record that I can.
Somebody told me once it takes an Americana song five minutes to say what a country song says in three - so I try to write country songs. But really, all good music is just soul music.
There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a 'social consciousness' concept album disguised as a country record.
I could go back to the railroad. I liked that job.
Atlantic has been great to me. They didn't flinch when I told them I was self-producing, and nobody was popping their head in the studio.
I lived in Japan when I was younger for about two years. I spent my time equally between religiously studying Aikido in Shinjuku by day and hard partying in Shibuya and Roppongi by night.
I someday hope to find the time and coin to invest more of my creative energy towards the visual media side of releasing music.
I love tape. It's another member of the band, the way it settles and blankets everything.
You make a little noise, and you can sell out your local hometown club. But then you drive an hour down the road to the next town, and there might be eight people there.
I just don't see myself as a songwriter or a country singer or any of those things anymore. It's more trying to express ideas and emotional textures.
Anything that I'm naturally curious about, I get really into. Maybe it's O.C.D. I get really consumed by something until I absorb it, then I'm done with it.
