Chris Stapleton may not be selling out stadiums forever. On the latest episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, the country singer admitted that he’s not sure what the next step is in his career.
“I don’t know when I’m gonna make another record or write a new song. I’m probably not really in the mood. And that’s OK with me,” he said. “… I don’t know how much longer I’ll even go play.”
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As he starts to consider his next steps, Stapleton said he wants ” to make a thoughtful decision about what I do with the rest of the time I have on the Earth.”
“[My family] gave a lot for me to be sitting here with you and doing things,” he said. “I owe them some things, I think, some time in particular.”
Stapleton, who shares five kids with his wife, Morgane, noted that, professionally, he’s “done more than I’ve ever set out to do.” Now, it’s about answering the question: “What’s the new dream?”
“I do think it’s important to find that,” he said. “For me, fuel is the search. I’m gonna have to search for something. I’m gonna have to hunt for something. I don’t know what that is or where it’s going to come from.”
Chris Stapleton Promises He’s “Not Hanging Up My Spurs”
Though Stapleton may not know his next step, he knows one thing for sure—”I’m not hanging up my spurs.”
“I’m just saying I’m looking for the fire,” he said. “I need the fire. I want the fire to lead.”
That fire, Stapleton admitted, is “sometimes that’s more elusive now than it used to be,” especially since he’s accomplished so much over the course of his career.
“I do think that I’ve done enough. It’s not about doing something else. It’s about, for me, wanting to do something else,” he said. “I think I owe it to the people who might listen to what I do, or come see me play live, or any of those things that they get 100 percent of whatever I’ve got left in me… I feel very resolute in that, and if I don’t think I can deliver on that, I have to evaluate that too.”
Stapleton will be mulling over his next chapter while on the road. The singer is gearing up to head out on his All-American Road Show. The trek will start out in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 23. Stapleton will take the show all across North America in the months that follow, before wrapping things up on Oct. 9 in Kansas City, Missouri.
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