Chris Stapleton may have won eight Grammys since his debut in 2015, but that didn't prevent him from feeling "terrified" before singing the national anthem at the 2023 Super Bowl.
"The national anthem’s a hard one for any singer, I don’t care who you are," Stapleton told Willie Geist on the Oct. 29 edition of Sunday Sitdown.
Ahead of the release of his fifth studio album "Higher," Stapleton sat down with Geist to unpack his career in country music, his inspirations and why performing live just "doesn't get old."
Stapleton says because of his "exponentially" high level of nerves before the Super Bowl, he prepared to sing the two-minute song more than he had for any television performance before. And it paid off.
The singer was hailed online for his rendition. Wearing an all-black outfit, Stapleton's signature rumbly voice, accompanied by a slow mournful electric guitar, created a performance that moved audiences at home and on the field. Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and center Jason Kelce specifically were seen tearing up during the performance.
When asked by Geist if he knew the power of his performance, Stapleton shrugged it off.
"People were like, 'Oh. You made people cry.' I was like, 'Oh, OK. Good, I’m gonna go watch the game,'" he said with a laugh.
Now, he's considered to be a contender for best Super Bowl national anthem singer of all time, in league with Whitney Houston.
His reaction?
"I'll defer," he said.
Many fans pointed to Stapleton's voice as one of the reasons why his national anthem performance was so poignant.
Stapleton says through his life he "always sang," but at times, he tried to emulate the sound of other musicians, like Vince Gill.
"I spent a lot of time trying to be other people," he said. "Like, I love Vince Gill. I tried so hard to be like Vince Gill and sound like Vince Gill. There’s lots of demo recordings of me, like, wishing I was Vince Gill."
But he started to find his own voice when he realized, "I'm not any of those people."
"Eventually, you, hopefully, through all those influences and also focusing on what it is that you do, you find out what that is. And then, you put that out there," he said. "If that’s something special that people think is special — that’s great."
Speaking of Stapleton's demo recordings, the title track of his upcoming album, out Nov. 10, comes from his personal archives. The song is the result of an early demo session from after he moved to Nashville in his 20s.
"I wrote that song by myself, and it’s been hanging out ever since," he said.
He acknowledges that after more than two decades, the song's meaning has changed — for himself and for audiences.
"I can think a song means one thing, and I can write it, and I can sing it. And then, it goes out into the world or you see people singing it back," he said. "And you see that it means something to them that’s probably not what you intended or maybe it’s exactly what you intended, but you see it in real time."
It's a feeling that he'll never get sick of, even though he doesn't perform "for the fame part."
"It doesn’t get old," he said.
