When it comes to doing a shoey, Chris Stapleton is putting his foot down.
The 10-time Grammy-winning country singer is on his first tour of Australia, but put him down for a no when it comes to participating in one of the country’s most notorious concert traditions—drinking beer from a shoe, also known as a shoey.
The New York Times has called it “Australia’s grossest drinking tradition,” and apparently Stapleton agrees.
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“I’ve heard about this. I asked somebody before I went on for the first night, ‘Is there anything that I should be prepared for?’” Stapleton said according to news.com.au, via Billboard.
“And then they’re like, ‘Yes, a shoey. They’ll want you to drink beer out of a shoe’. And I said I will graciously decline to do that. But no one has asked me to do that yet and maybe this interview will make someone want to do that. I don’t know. But I’m probably going to decline that request.
“I mean is there some kind of penalty if I don’t do it? Are they going to throw things at me?”
While Stapleton has opted out of the tradition, other country stars visiting the continent have got their shoey on, including Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, and Post Malone, back before he crossed over to country.
The tradition isn’t limited to musicians. Others who have consumed suds from a shoe include Australian Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo; film and television stars Sir Patrick Stewart, Gerard Butler, Hugh Grant and Jimmy Fallon, per The N.Y. Times.
Harry Styles, however, is like Stapleton and opted to pass on the shoey tradition. “What’s a shoey?” Styles is heard saying in a video clip from a 2018 concert in Brisbane. “Where’d that come from?” before adding, “I’m not going to drink out of a bloody shoe! Are you mad?”
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