Ben Chapman has lived in Nashville long enough to tell you all of the great places the city has to offer… and how much Music City has changed. The “Don’t You Dare” singer joined the Whiskey Riff Raff to talk about how he and his wife – fellow artist Meg McCree – juggle music and raising their little one, the music that helped shape who he is, having Channing Wilson as a mentor, and his latest album, Feet On Fire, being called “funky tonk.” Ben also talked about how he approaches songwriting, trying to have songs that jam but avoiding being a “jam band,” and his concern that no cool music will be made in 20 years. Chapman went on to say a lot of modern artists are making “phone in” records, called out a lot of young artists that don’t know the history of country music, and entertained the thought of country stars from the 60s and 70s living in the modern, social media age of music. It was a wide-ranging conversation, but one portion that’s sure to get Nashvillians and those planning to visit to lean in was when Chapman – a Nashville resident for over seven years now – started throwing out his Music City recommendations. There are plenty of spots around town that he likes, but there’s only a select few that earn “favorite” status: “I would say, for like a beer and honky tonk vibe, you’ve got Bobby’s Idle Hour. I love Santa’s Pub on a Sunday. You’ve got the ice cold pickers. Kind of a new spot, Skinny Dennis. Sometimes that get’s a little too yuppy for me. But I like it, it’s cool. Seems like a really cool crowd is there on Fridays and Saturdays. For food, Wendell Smith’s is my favorite, all-time spot. It’s the best meat and three. Best breakfast in town, I think. They have the best fried chicken. I could go on and on about them. I could be a spokesperson.” @whiskeyriff @Ben Chapman #whiskeyriff #whiskeyriffraff ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff Wendell Smith’s should get in touch. Chapman also shouted out all of the guitar shops he frequents, like Carter’s. And he also couldn’t help but to say the thing that many people living in Nashville has been saying lately: it’s changed a ton. The country artist remembers how cool it was coming to Music City as a kid, and just wait until you hear him describe what Broadway used to be like: “Just in the time I’ve been here, (it’s changed). I was coming up as a kid. I kind of knew music was what I always wanted to do… coming up at 10-years-old, it was like a ghost town. You would go to Broadway and do whatever you wanted to at 10-years-old. They weren’t stopping you from getting in. You could park on the street. Literally we’d pull up, my grandparents would take me, we’d come up and park right on the street and walk in. Hear the coolest sh*t ever playing, get in the car, drive a half mile down the road, pull over again. It was awesome.” The parking portion alone of the Nashville of yesteryear sounds wonderful. But that was a long time ago. Even when Chapman moved to Nashville almost a decade ago, it was unrecognizable from the times he visited as a kid: “When I moved to town, it had already changed. It had that boom feel to it. Then year 5, right after COVID, everyone was coming in from California and Austin, Texas. It kind of did what Austin did, had that huge boom.” The jury is still out on whether that boom was truly good for Nashville. You can hear about all of that and more from Ben Chapman by checking out the interview on YouTube or making sure to download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff.” We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts. Cheers, y’all. Audio Video The post Ben Chapman Details His Go-To Places In Nashville: “I Could Go On & On” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.