Chris Stapleton Takes Home 2016's Music Video of the Year CMA

Last year's big CMA Awards winner, Chris Stapleton, has taken home the first of 2016's CMAs. Early Wednesday (Nov. 2) on Good Morning America, the country star was revealed as this year's Music Video of the Year winner.

“Fire Away,” Stapleton's nominated video, is all about the effect we have on one another — for better or worse. The song itself is about the unconditional love shown even when it’s hard, and its accompanying clip, focused on a police officer trying to save the love of his life as she suffers from depression, is truly a work of art. Directed by Tim Mattia and featuring actors Ben Foster and Margarita Levieva, the video barely spotlights Stapleton himself, instead choosing to shine a light on mental health issues.

“It just kind of came in my head as something to do,” Stapleton explains. “The song is kind of about loving somebody unconditionally through not-so-easy times, and the concept of the video kind of came to me as, that would be the hardest possible space in which to love somebody.”

Stapleton says that his record label had been pushing him to create a video for a while, but they didn’t expect him to come up with the difficult storyline that he did.

“I was putting it off and putting it off and putting it off,” he recalls. “Finally, they kept asking enough, and I just spouted out basically the treatment for this video, and everybody just looked at me like I had three heads, like it was the craziest thing. I didn’t want to be in the video, I wanted to make it about this uncomfortable subject, and I wanted to get real actors and not spend a lot of time making it a promo video for me. That was how I wanted to make a video because I felt like that was more artful and meaningful on the back end.”

In addition to Music Video of the Year, Stapleton is nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year and Musical Event of the Year at the 2016 CMA Awards. The 50th anniversary ceremony begins Wednesday night at 8PM ET on ABC.

Chris Stapleton Takes Home 2016’s Music Video of the Year CMA Award