Eric Church is preparing to release the first of three new albums from his upcoming Heart & Soul project on Friday (April 16th). The reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year helmed a marathon session during which he spent nearly a month writing and recording a song per day – including current single “Hell of a View” – while sequestered in a rural North Carolina cabin last January (2020). He brought with him his producer Jay Joyce, his band and a horde of songwriters, including one of his frequent collaborators Casey Beathard, who co-wrote 12 of the 24 tracks on Heart & Soul.

Eric calls Casey the “heartbeat” of this new project because of everything he brought to the table less than one month after his 22-year-old son, Clay Beathard, was stabbed to death four days shy of Christmas 2019.

“Casey was, of all the writers, he was the most integral in this whole process. Everybody did great, but he was the one to me that got the heartbeat of it, the soul of it. And he was coming off of, for people who didn’t know, his son was killed right before we went. And when I mean right before, I mean within a month. So, I wasn’t sure if Casey was going to be in a position to go and do it,” says Eric. “Just the strength and faith, he was very inspiring to me. And I had lost my brother not long before, about a year or so before that, so we were talking about that a lot. It just created the most unique situation I’ve ever seen. And with the musicians and writers too, they felt they were a part of something; they weren’t just hired, they weren’t just paid to do it. They wanted it.”

Eric, who is nominated for three ACM Awards including Entertainer, Male Artist and Music Event of the Year, releases the first of his three records, Heart, on Friday (April 16th). He created the middle album of the trilogy, &, specifically for the Church Choir (his fan club), which will be available exclusively to them only as a vinyl record on April 20th. The third installment, Soul, is set for release April 23rd.