And this coming from someone who has plenty of #1s, both of his own and from songs he's written for other people. Yesterday, it was announced that country superstar Chris Stapleton is teaming up with JR Motorsports as the race team attempts to make its debut in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team will field an entry in the 2025 Daytona 500 with Justin Allgaier as the driver, and he will drive the No. 40 car for Chris Stapleton’s Traveller Whiskey brand (to correspond with the blend No. 40 in the product), with Greg Ives as the crew chief. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE3EgYHvYdn/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=b7a75e88-ec8e-4ed1-9c5b-0eee15c574c4 And today, Stapleton sat down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for his Dale Jr. Download podcast to talk about the new partnership, and of course, Chris’ impressive country music career thus far. Dale Jr. is a huge music fan, and was especially curious about someone who is at the caliber of Chris Stapleton feels about radio success. He cleaned up at award shows for years now, and had #1 radio hits with own songs like "White Horse" and "You Should Probably Leave," as well songs he wrote for other artists like Josh Turner's "Your Man" and Kenny Chesney's "Never Wanted Nothing More." Because of all of that radio success, Dale Jr. asked how closely Chris follows the radio charts, and Stapleton replied that he's learned not to worry too much about it over the years: "Well, I have done that before, but I don't. As a songwriter, there's these services where you can watch realtime where these things are going... that will drive you crazy. It's not worth it." He explained that, no matter how good or bad your song is doing at radio, someone will inform you so there's no point in wasting your time trying to track it every single day. It's simply not healthy, and doesn't really help anything: "I can't watch that either, I had learned not to by that point... why? Well the reason is because somebody will tell you if it does good, and somebody will tell you if it's gone. So there's no real reason to watch it, you just go do the next thing." Dale Jr. talked about how, as a fan of music, he enjoys keeping up with the Billboard charts, and Stapleton says that even with streams, it's all ultimately about "visibility," which is really what makes all of it "important" if you're going to make it at a high level in mainstream music: "No, it's still important, I'm not saying it's not important in any way shape or form... I mean, streams are a different thing. all those things are important in ways that they've always been important: they are visibility. But it doesn't change how I make something. I'm just as proud of something that died in the 40s as I am of something that went all the way to #1 because I believed in it." Couldn't have said it better myself... as long as you believe in the quality, purity and authenticity of the music you put out, then it shouldn't matter how high it charts on the radio. Dale Jr. also asked him if there were ever songs he really loved that didn't chart well, and if that was frustration, and Stapleton was pretty humble in saying, whether songs have done really well or not, so much of what's happened in his career has been about "luck." I totally get where he's coming from and appreciate his humility, but I beg to differ... "Well sometimes it's just luck, though. I'm incredibly lucky in a lot of ways. Timing has to be right for the song... I don't know. Or it just served the purpose that it was gonna serve in the moment and you believe in it in that moment and next. Keep on working." To that end, Jr. also asked Chris about his Gold and Platinum records, which Stapleton almost seemed embarrassed to admit mostly sit in boxes still wrapped up how they were shipped to him: "Physical Gold and Platinum records? Those are all nice to have, but that's a weird calculation now too cu it's not all based on physical copes, there's a streaming component, and that is a calculation that seems arbitrary a little bit to me. But, you know, yeah, they're important in that you can say, 'I have one of those, or I don't have one of those.' I'm gonna be honest with you, I have a lot of those things, and some of them are wrapped up in boxes for my kids to look at maybe one day." It's pretty rare for Chris to do such an extensive sit down interview, and he's just exactly how you hope he would be... humble, kind and focused on the right stuff in terms of his career and keeping his music so true to who he is. It's a great conversation, and I think he absolutely nailed it in terms of the nuance of why radio success can be important, while knowing that it doesn't define you and how good your music is. Check it out: https://youtu.be/Lvyhr2RcBR8?t=3585 His most recent #1 hit was "White Horse," which topped the charts last year and was featured on his Higher album. "White Horse" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXyUUUFtNJc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.whiskeyriff.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE