Johnny Blue Skies – A.K.A. Sturgill Simpson – has gotten where he is today because of hard work. Because of that, he doesn’t have much sympathy for artists in Nashville that are talented, yet aren’t willing to put in the work.
The Dread Pirate known for songs like “Turtles All The Way Down” and, more recently, “Situation,” recently sat down for his first interview since releasing Mutiny After Midnight earlier this year. To call the album release untraditional would be an understatement. It wasn’t available on streaming, JBS didn’t do a media tour, and there wasn’t much of a heads up that the project was releasing.
And it has still been one of the biggest records of Simpson’s/Johnny Blue Skies’ career.
In typical Sturgill Simpson fashion, he’s evaded the normal path and has only done one interview about the music that’s captivated his loyal fanbase… and it was with Playboy. In it, he answered 20 questions, with one being about his own work ethic and how he’s built his own empire, beginning with the 2013 release of High Top Mountain.
Johnny Blue Skies laid it out plain and simple: He wasn’t ever the most talented person in the room, but he was willing to outwork everyone else:
“I had all the thankless f***ing jobs. There are so many people I met when I moved to Nashville 15 years ago who had exponentially more talent than I do, but they had no work ethic. Or they though that, because they were brilliant, they didn’t have to earn their medals.
No, b*tch, get in the van and go do circles and sleep on f***ing floors for six months until 12 people in a room give a sh*t. That’s the only thing that’s going to be lasting. If you’re waiting on some machine to pump you out, that machine is going to flush your ass too. Talent’s not as rare as people think.”
What a hard-hitting dose of truth right there.
As for what keeps him motivated in the present day, over a decade after he got started in the music business in his mid-30’s, JBS says he’s always seeking out “fun.” The work is serious, but himself? He’s as unserious as it gets… and those are his words:
“For me, it was always the work. People call me a pretentious, fart-sniffing a**hole, but whatever. I take the work pretty seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously. When we’re in the studio, that is the real success: We get to do this again…
Not everything has to be a Proustian novel. Sometimes you can just write a song about a girl’s bubbles and f***ing. People can be like, ‘Oh this is surface level.’ No, man, this is fun. I have suffered and was depressed for a lot of my life, and I am kind of done with feeling that way.”
And by being driven by that, rather than by a particular message, there’s a freedom that becomes present in the music.
That’s very evident in Mutiny After Midnight, which shifts from political unrest anthems to incredibly descriptive love songs at break-neck speed. Was that the plan? Yes and no… it sounds like the creative atmosphere was open to anything, and that’s just how the album came out:
“We went into the studio with two weeks before a show. We were all like, ‘We’re here. Let’s come in every day, make a groove, and write a song.’ Some days we wrote about civil unrest and civil disobedience, and some days we wrote about f***ing, you know?”
Oh… we know.
Spin Mutiny After Midnight and that quickly becomes clear. And see Johnny Blue Skies live and that “Let’s allow the music to guide us” approach is the number one thing you’ll notice. Speaking of, you should probably try to see JBS and the Dark Clouds soon. He recently shared that, after this tour, they are gonna go away for a while.
Mutiny For The Masses Tour Dates
Sep 23 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
Sep 26 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
Sep 27 – St. Paul, MN – Grand Casino Arena
Sep 29 -Chicago, IL – United Center
Oct 2 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
Oct 3 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
Oct 6 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise Center
Oct 7 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
Oct 9 – Pittsburgh, PA – Petersen Events Center
Oct 10 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
Oct 13 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
Oct 15 – Philadelphia, PA – Xfinity Mobile Arena
Oct 16 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
Oct 18 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena
Oct 21 – Raleigh, NC – Lenovo Center
Oct 23 – Charleston, SC – Credit One Stadium
Oct 25 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena
Oct 27 – New Orleans, LA – Lakefront Arena
Oct 30 – Lexington, KY – Rupp Arena
