Sturgill Simpson on Staying Country, Covering Nirvana on New Album

“It doesn’t feel like my life or the process has changed at all. Atlantic has been great to me. They didn’t flinch when I told them I was self-producing and nobody was popping their head in the studio,” he says. “Actually they didn’t hear a single note until the album was mastered so I really do have the creative freedom and the means to make the best art I possibly can now, which is all I ever really wanted. There are no expectations other than those I place on myself to be a great father and husband.”

In May, Simpson will kick off a spring tour with a pair of sold-out shows in Austin. Other dates, including those in his native Kentucky, have also sold out. With all of the brass and atmospheric sounds on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Simpson is looking forward to the challenge of performing it in front of an audience, joking that the size of his band may jump dramatically.

“The album was recorded live, so it will be pretty fun to recreate,” he says. “Strings, horns, 30 deckhands singing shanty songs. . . the whole works.”