Eric Church
Country-rock superstar and Country Music Association Entertainer Of The Year Eric Church returns with a new triple-album, optimism for future gigs and thoughts on the controversial interview that landed him in hot water three years ago.
The country-rock superstar returns with a new triple album, optimism for future gigs, and thoughts on that controversial interview he gave that landed him in hot water three years ago.
George Harrison did it. Frank Zappa and Prince both did it. Now, with his latest release Heart & Soul, Eric Church has joined the short list of artists who’ve let it all hang out creatively with a triple album. “I certainly did not set out to do a triple album,” Church tells Classic Rock with a laugh. “We went in to make just one album. We just didn’t think we’d be as successful as we were with this kind of creative boot-camp idea I’d set up.”
Church’s boot- camp challenge was deceptively simple: wake up each day, write a song, record it. Repeat for thirty days. Pick the best songs and release them as an album.
“After the last album and tour, it was time to make another record and it felt a bit grind-y,” Church says. “We felt a little fat and happy. The thing that has made us good is that edge and sense of urgency. That sense of: ‘We’ve got to prove these motherfuckers wrong again.’ So I tried to make it harder, take us out of our element. First, we’re recording in a restaurant that’s not really a studio. No one’s ever made a record there. We have to figure out how to wire the place. We have to bring in a generator. All the players and songwriters are there, it’s snowing like hell and it’s ten degrees outside. And on top of that we have no material written! This cannot be any more difficult. What’s crazy is that it all fell together once we started. It made us really focus. I think creativity works best when it’s comfortably uncomfortable.”
The songs on the record are grouped together by theme: Heart songs, Soul songs and Ampersand songs for those that don’t fit neatly in either of the other two categories. From the Mellencamp-ish heartland romp of Heart On Fire, through the swampy Memphis groove of Bad Mother Trucker, to the lighters-aloft celebration of live music Through My Ray-Bans, the album is an embarrassment of riches and a master class on how to write a country song. In a market driven by three-minute radio singles, a triple album might be an indulgent, risky move. But Church has made a career out of pushing envelopes.
Born in Granite Falls, North Carolina in 1977, he grew up around gospel music in church. But what really turned his head were the power chords at his first big concert.
“I was fourteen, and I went with the older brother of a friend to see AC/DC,” he recalls. “I was sitting on the lawn at this amphitheater, watching this huge crowd with their fists in the air as the band played Back In Black. It was my first real physical and emotional touch to rock’n’roll and to the freedom that it provided. I remember the visceral reaction to that. It really defined my youth. Everything changed in that moment. I looked around and thought: ‘Holy cow, this is cool!’”
Soon after, Church was teaching himself guitar and writing his first songs. “They were terrible songs,” he admits, “but I had melodies and sketches of little choruses. By the time I graduated high school I started to be really drawn to songwriting. That led me to Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Prine – the people who were the quintessential songwriters. I started to study them. In college my experience had less to do with academics and more to do with songwriters.”
“When I was fourteen I went to see AC/DC. It was my first real physical and emotional touch to rock’n’roll.”