By Tricia Despres
For Sun-Times Media
It’s been said many times and many ways — there is something different about Kip Moore that sets him apart from the flock of country music rockers in search of quick hits and quick stardom these days.
It could be the way the Platinum selling singer/songwriter has not rushed his career or his music, preferring to listen to his gut. Or it could be his no-nonsense look, pairing baseball caps with plaid shirts, not because everyone else is doing it, but rather because that’s his look, going back to his younger days in Tifton, Ga.
[one_third] Kip Moore With Charlie Worsham, Sam Hunt, Oct. 10-11, Joe’s Bar, 940 W. Weed. Sold out. joesbar.com [/one_third]
Or it could be as simple as this — Kip Moore is a man of conviction.
“I am determined to make music that rips people’s hearts out and makes them feel something in their soul,” Moore says in a raspy voice on this particular Friday morning after kicking off his headlining gig on the “CMT On Tour 2014: Up in Smoke” in New York City. “I want to make music that is special to people and a record that lives long past a year or two. It’s not just about a quick burn. I feel like there is a lot of that already out there.”
It’s this conviction that has kept Moore from caving in to pressure to release a follow-up to his 2012 debut album “Up All Night”, which spurned chart-topping hits such as “Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck,” “Beer Money” and “Hey Pretty Girl”.
“I think I thought I had the record the way I wanted it,” Moore says. “But then I realized it had a lot of missing ingredients and key elements. I think a lot of people would just be like…‘Whatever… I have some hits on there…it’s good enough’. But my goal is to have the best record out there. I want to have the record everyone is talking about. I want to give my fans the record where they won’t have one song to skip over. So, I had to dig deeper.”
Which means he plans to release a new album toward the beginning of 2015. However, to hold off the cravings of his passionate fans, Moore recently released a live streaming EP, “Soundcheck”, including unreleased songs “Heart’s Desire,” “Come And Get It,” “Hang A While” and “Lipstick”.
“We released the EP just a few days ago and the fans were already singing the lyrics to ‘Heart’s Desire’ to me last night,” says the 2014 CMA nominee for “New Artist of the Year. “One of the hardest things for me has been playing the same songs off of ‘Up All Night’ for the past two years. The hardest part at this point is saving some things so they can be discovered when the new album comes out.”
But untilthen, Moore says he is thrilled to headline the concert series that has, in the past, given a needed push to the careers of everyone from Jake Owen to Hunter Hayes to Luke Bryan. “To be honest, I try not to think about those things…I just want to focus on the things I can control,” explains Moore, who hits more than 20 cities through November with Charlie Worsham and Sam Hunt. “I can’t sit here and think about if a radio station is going to play my stuff or what this tour might mean for me and the band. I just want to focus on what I can do.”
And what he did in Chicago is sell out a two night stand at Joe’s Bar.
“Two days in Chicago….I’m going to have to make a friend to show me around,” he laughs.
