(CSC) 1. Tell us about your role on the Country Throwdown tour and what are you enjoying most about it?
(Eric Church)
I think most of all it’s a chance for country fans to discover music. I think in this format too many times what they hear on the radio is what they become fans of and this is a festival where there’s a songwriter’s stage, there’s a bunch of new artists out here, bunch of new acts out here. I think it’s something that they had a lot of success with on the “Warped” and the “Mayhem” tours and maybe country fans aren’t accustomed to. I think it’s great to be able to come out and discover some stuff that maybe they weren’t exposed to.
(CSC) 2. Tell us about your latest album “Carolina” and how does it define you as an artist at this stage in your career?
(Eric Church)
I think with our first record “Sinners like Me” we had a lot of critical success. It was kind of edgy and in your face. With “Carolina” I felt like I had a target on my back when I made it you know, because you have that whole sophomore soft thing you know, which pisses me off! But I just tried to keep it about the music. It took longer to make the record than I anticipated. We went three and a half years between records, which is not great from a label standpoint. It may be three and a half years before the next one! I’m not going to put out another record unless it’s the right record and we got the songs and we got the music. I think doing that way, a lot of artists treat music as I’m going to make a single and hope I end up with a record. I make a record; I hope I end up with singles. You know it’s just the difference in the old school approach, basically. That’s how I treated “Carolina” and how I’ll treat the next one.
(CSC) 3. Being blessed with hit songs such as “How Bout You,” “Guys Like Me,” and “Two Pink Lines,” what do you attribute to their success?
(Eric Church)
I think basically the people I write about and sing about is myself. You know, I’ve been out in that crowd, I know what they feel. I know what they think. I know my families pretty well. So, it’s just about addressing that and giving them the music, they want. We’re an act that says stuff that we believe. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable where there’s “Two Pink Lines” about teen pregnancy, “Lightning” about the death penalty, but that’s ok. We’re the one act that’s going to say it. I think our fans like us for it.
(CSC) 4. How have you been able to become a part volunteering in the recent Nashville floods and were you affected personally?
(Eric Church)
We were affected by it personally. We could fish out of our yard for a couple of days if we wanted to, but we were a lot more fortunate than a lot of people. So, we’re doing as much as we can down there as far as donating everything monetarily but also, we took a lot of our excess merchandise you’d be surprised how much stuff like that in a situation like that, just giving clothes to people is a big deal. So, we did a lot of that, just donated it. We’re all in it together in Nashville. It’s the first time since I’ve been there that something like that has happened. It’s been great to watch the community rally around.
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