Isbell requires vaccination, negative COVID tests

"We're now requiring proof of vaccination or a current negative test to attend all our shows, indoors or out. If the venue won't allow that, we won't play," Isbell tweeted.

"I'm all of freedom, but if you're dead, you don't have any freedoms at all, Isbell told Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC. "So it's probably important to stay alive instead of questioning your liberty. It's life, and then it's liberty, and then it's the pursuit of happiness. Those are in order of priority."

Asked about the music business and the possibility of defying government mandates and losing funding for requiring vaccinations, Isbell said, "the people who work at the venues and who work in the music business understand. From everyone I've everything I've heard so far, all the response I've gotten from people in the business has been positive because they understand that we could go back to not working at all. A lot of these smaller venues, they are not going to be able to reopen if they go through another round of shutdowns."

"The problem is that they're getting so much pushback from some of the governors of certain states who want to kowtow to their political base and try to make people think their freedom is being encroached upon."