Mercury NashvilleAfter the release last Friday of Chris Stapleton’s sophomore album, From A Room: Volume 1, he has a real shot at debuting at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart for the first time.
Even though his previous effort, Traveller, has now sold millions of copies, when it was first released two years ago, it only opened to modest success. It wasn’t until after the 2015 CMA Awards that it skyrocketed to the top of the all-inclusive tally.
While it would’ve been easy to be intimidated making the follow-up, Chris says he figured out a way around it.
“About a day into getting into the studio, we very much tried to put any kind of expectation or noise out to the peripheral, and kinda just get back to making music for the sake of making music,” he recalls.
“You know, I didn’t have any expectations for the last record,” he goes on. “If we sold 50,000 records, it’d be a giant victory for me as far as getting to go out and play shows and play live and keep the wheels rolling, you know. But we did a little bit more than that.”
Similarly, Chris says he doesn’t intend to measure From A Room by the Traveller yardstick.
“My expectations for this record don’t have much to do with the last record,” he confesses. “I want it to be whatever it’s gonna be… That kinda takes the pressure off for me. I’m sure other folks, labels or retailers,” he laughs, “might have other opinions of that.”
The first single from Stapleton’s second record, “Either Way,” already has managed to crack country’s top-40, even though it hasn’t even been out a week.
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