Sam Hunt Reveals Questions About Faith Led to Writing ‘Sinning With You’

When Sam Hunt dropped “Sinning With You,” he knew he would raise a few eyebrows, especially from those, like himself, who were raised in the church. Hunt is fine with people questioning his song, since it was his own questions about his faith that led him to write the song in the first place.

“I didn’t realize until I left my hometown that I had been so, I don’t want to say programmed, but maybe programmed, conditioned to kind of think certain things without questioning them too much,” the Georgia native shared with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music’s Beats 1. “But I guess naturally inquisitive, so I kind of need to know the whys behind everything. So I started I guess kind of questioning the things that I was doing without thinking too much about them at about 18, 19, 20.

“And then I moved out of town and realized there were different perspectives and different thoughts,” he continued. “I guess processes about different things in life and I kind of started to contemplate those things too, like everybody else does.”

Hunt hopes that “Sinning With You” inspires listeners to not necessarily change what they believe, as much as look within to find out if it’s what they truly believe themselves, as Hunt has done, and continues to do.

“Especially in the South I feel it’s like there’s a line there somewhere, but times have changed and some things you feel like are wrong or something,” Hunt explained. “Because you maybe had been told that they were wrong, but you don’t necessarily feel like they are. And the song’s not necessarily taking a stance on it either way, but it’s just reflecting on, I guess, the feelings.”

Hunt wrote “Sinning With You” with a couple of his good friends, even though he admits he had much of the song at least started by the time he brought them in to help him finish it.

“I was writing one night just on guitar and this rarely happens to me, a whole verse and chorus rarely comes out all at the same time,” recalled the singer. “But most of that chorus came out. So I had a verse and chorus and I took that into a co-write with some writers who I am really comfortable with and guys and girls that I was writing with, Emily Wiseman and Josh Osborne were good buddies of mine. We’ve had lots of conversations about things.”

“Sinning With You” follows “Kinfolks,” which is Hunt’s current single, and the debut track from his upcoming, still-untitled new album.

“I knew they would get it,” Hunt explained. “And we wrote a second verse and kind of a bridge and finished it out that day. And I didn’t really look at it again for several months. And then I was revisiting songs and that one just kind of stood out as a good counterbalance for ‘Kinfolks.’ Because ‘Kinfolks’ is fine and light, and I just wanted to put something out that was kind of the other end of the spectrum.”

Photo Credit: Getty / FilmMagic / Manny Carabel