• ERIC CHURCH’S LATEST RELEASE, DESPERATE MAN, REMAINS AT NO. 1 ON THE COUNTRY ALBUM CHARTS FOR A SECOND WEEK IN A ROW.

    Eric Church’s Desperate Man held the top spot on the Billboard Country Album Chart for a second week in a row. The collection sold nearly 16,000 copies to land at No. 1, followed by Carrie Underwood’s Cry Pretty at No. 2.

    Eric says the key that unlocked the album was made up of three songs. “An interesting thing about this album is that there are some crumbs that led us to this album. There were three songs that really led to the rest of the album and that’s ‘The Snake,’ which is up front on the album, that’s ‘Hippie Radio’ and that’s ‘Higher Wire,’ and there is a creative thing that happened. Those were the ether of the earlier ones that took us from we are on this path, and then we went to this path,” says Eric. “I think that if I am talking to [the fans] and they are listening to the album the album as a whole, there’s something pretty magical about those three tracks because they really made the record happen. And that’s not something that everybody would know unless I tell you. For me, that was really the key that unlocked Desperate Man.”

    Eric, who is currently sitting inside the Top 20 with his latest song, “Desperate Man,” will kick off his Double Down Tour with a two-night stand in Omaha, Nebraska beginning January 18th.

    Audio / Eric Church says there are three songs that finally “unlocked” his new album, Desperate Man.

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    Eric Church (songs that unlocked Desperate Man) OC: …Desperate Man. :43
    “An interesting thing about this album is that there are some crumbs that led us to this album. There were three songs that really led to the rest of the album and that’s ‘The Snake,’ which is up front on the album, that’s ‘Hippie Radio’ and that’s ‘Higher Wire,’ and there is a creative thing that happened. Those were ether of the earlier ones that took us from we are on this path, and then we went to this path. And I think that, if I am talking to [the fans], and they are listening to the album the album as a whole, there’s something pretty magical about those three tracks because they really made the record happen. And that’s not something that everybody would know unless I tell you. For me, that was really the key that unlocked Desperate Man.”

  • ERIC CHURCH DESPERATE MAN VIGNETTES.

    We have put together :30, :60 and :90 vignettes of Eric Church’s latest song, “Desperate Man.”

    Audio / :30 Desperate Man vignette

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    Audio / :60 Desperate Man vignette

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    Audio / :90 Desperate Man vignette

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  • ERIC CHURCH’S “DESPERATE MAN” DEBUTS AT NO. 1 ON THE COUNTRY ALBUM CHARTS.

    Eric Church’s Desperate Man debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. The collection sold 116,000 units (comprised of albums, track downloads and over 14 million audio on-demand streams).

    The North Carolina native says the creative process of the album was interesting because he broke away from his usual process in the studio.

    “This record was made in the studio, from writing to completion, then any record we have ever made,” says Eric. “It was really there, ‘cause I wrote songs there, we change things there, I played parts there I never played, never thought of. I think maybe it was the first album in our career that there was more creative energy in the studio than any other because it was written, made, conceived, it was all there.”

    Eric, who is sitting inside the Top 15 on the country singles charts, will kick off his 2019 Doubles Down Tour January 18th and 19th in Omaha, Nebraska.

    Audio / Eric Church talks about being creative in the studio for his new album, Desperate Man.

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    Eric Church (creative process in the studio) OC: …the creativity. :57
    “It was an interesting creative process. This record was made in the studio, from writing to completion, then any record we have ever made. It was really there, ‘cause I wrote songs there, we change things there. I played parts there, I never played, never thought of. I think maybe it was the first album in our career that there was more creative energy in the studio than any other, because it was written, made, conceived, it was all there. I mean, on ‘The Snake,’ for example, that background part was myself, Jeff Hyde and Joanna, and we tried to sound the old blues kind of sound. We were doing that creatively in the studio, and it made a really interesting thing. A lot of people will say, ‘Who sang that? who is that?’ Well it was us! We were feeling the creativity.”

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  • HALLOWEEN 2018: Adam, Alan, Billy, Brothers O, Clare, Darius, Dierks, Eric, Jon, Jon, Jordan, Luke, Maddie & Tae, Travis

    Halloween is Wednesday, October 31st, and the holiday has some of your favorite country stars getting into costumes, while others are recalling memories of Halloweens past.

     

    Audio / Adam Hambrick talks about one of his favorite Halloween costumes as a kid.

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    Adam Hambrick (Halloween) OC: …five-years-old. :10
    “My grandmother made me a Ghostbusters jumpsuit, and I had the proton backpack and I went as Peter Venkman, the Ghostbuster, when I was five-years-old.”

    Audio / Alan Jackson used to take his now grown daughters trick-or-treating when they were young children, but he recalls one costume that he hated. It was an infant costume that made one of the girls look like a little peapod.

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    AJ (Halloween) OC: …cute, but…[laughs] :17
    “Aww, I remember some, when they were infants, they had like these little, they looked like a little pea pod, you know, or something. It’s like a little green pea or something. And I thought man, that’s awful. But Denise liked it, and I guess it was cute, but…(laughs).”

    Audio / Billy Currington reminisces about his childhood Halloween memories.

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    Billy Currington (Halloween) OC: …Halloween. :17
    “You know, when I was a kid, I loved the trick and the treat. I loved dressing up. I was always wanting to be Dracula. That was my favorite guy. But, of course, who doesn’t love going door-to-door and getting these buckets of candy? [laughs] So, love, love Halloween.”

     

    Audio / JOHN AND TJ OSBORNE TALK ABOUT THEIR FAVORITE HALLOWEEN CANDY.

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    Brothers Osborne (Halloween candy) OC: (John) …go stale. [laughs] :34
    TJ: “I would say, Snickers, Baby Ruth, Kit Kat and Reese’s too.” JOHN: “I always hated those houses that would give you bad candy, though. You’re like, ‘C’mon. Step it up.’ Spend the extra dollar on a bag, you know?” TJ: “A house when we were growing up used to give out whole candy bars. It was the best. You were like, ‘That house – that’s the honey hole of candy.’” JOHN: “I love it, and I love like at the end, like three or four days after Halloween you would see what candy was left, and it was always like those crappy cheap candies, and they would just go stale.” [laughs]

    Audio / Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne talks about carving pumpkins with their dad when they were growing up.

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    Brothers Osborne (carving pumpkins) OC: …or something. :25
    “With our dad every year, we would go looking for pumpkins, and we would all get our own pumpkin to carve, and he would buy the biggest pumpkin that they had. It was huge. I mean, it was way too big for any one person, but he would love carving. He’s kind of an artsy guy. He was a great drawer and stuff, and he would carve the most terrifying, vicious looking, scary pumpkin you’d ever seen in your life, and it would be massive. It would be like on a 50-pound pumpkin or something.”

    Audio / Brothers Osborne’s TJ and John Osborne talk about dressing up like zombies for Halloween.

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    Brothers Osborne (zombie costume) OC: (John) …was so fun! :29
    TJ: “Literally, you can dress up like a zombie and drag your foot behind you all day and make weird noises, and everyone finds that completely acceptable.” [laughs] JOHN: “One year I dressed up as a ‘90s redneck zombie with a mullet wig and an Alan Jackson denim coat. I never once broke character. That’s part of the thing — you can actually not break character and get away with it. And everywhere I went, even when I ordered a drink, I ordered it like a zombie that was falling apart. [laughs] It was so fun!”

    Audio / Brothers Osborne’s TJ Osborne talks about one of his favorite childhood Halloween costumes.

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    Brothers Osborne (Halloween costume) OC: (TJ) …I love it. :37
    TJ: “There was a costume I had when I was a kid that my dad made. I was a caterpillar, no, you were a caterpillar and I was a spider. And so I don’t know if you’re familiar with pipe insulation? It’s like these black tubes, and so I had these little black pipe insulators as my legs.” JOHN: “There were strings attached to him that would hold some of the black pipe insulators under his hands, and he’d put working gloves on the end of them and so when he’d raise his arms, all of the little spider legs would raise up with it. [laughs] I’m telling you, our parents were total hippies. They were just…” TJ: “Artsy-fartsy hippies. I love it.”

    Audio / Growing up on a working ranch where the nearest neighbor was about five miles away, Clare Dunn says trick-or-treating was hit-or-miss.

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    Clare Dunn (Halloween) OC: …and stuff. :23
    “Halloween was always hit and miss. I mean it’s five miles to my nearest neighbor. So, for us if we wanted to go trick-or-treating or whatever, some of the country kids a couple of years would all band together and we’d drive around in vehicles from house to house to house. So, we’d all pile into a pickup and then we’d go annoy our neighbors for candy and stuff.”

    Audio / Darius Rucker loves Halloween, especially because it’s his kids’ favorite holiday.

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    Darius (Halloween) OC: …I’m into. :06
    “Halloween’s big for me, because the kids love it. It’s my kids’ favorite holiday, so anything they’re into, I’m into.”

    Audio / Dierks Bentley talks about the Halloweens of his childhood.

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    Dierks Bentley (Halloween) OC: … …around home. [laughs]  :23
    “Oh, when I was a kid, I was all into fireworks. Growing up in Arizona, we couldn’t get ’em, so we’d have ’em shipped in illegally. I still remember the name of the guy we’d call. His name was Joe, and he’d bring in, ship ’em in a package with no writing on ’em. We were all about M-80s in the mailboxes and bottle rocket wars. To me, as a kid, Halloween was fireworks, was blowing up stuff around home. [laughs]”

    Audio / Eric Church recalls his favorite Halloween costume.

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    Eric Church (Halloween) OC: …Franklin Street. 1:18
    “My favorite Halloween costume really came, I remember when I got a little older my first year of college, there’s this thing they do every year in Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Halloween on Franklin Street. We drove down from Boone, North Carolina. I had a bunch of friends that went to University of North Carolina, and we didn’t have costumes and didn’t realize until we were on the way that we had to have costumes. So, we stopped at a costume place in Greensboro, North Carolina. It’s Halloween, so there’s a run on everything and couldn’t find anything. And we end up getting sent around, driving  around town. We end up finding this hole in the wall place, but they had the full costume, Sesame Street outfits. The real deal. The real ones [with] feathers and fur. We were Elmo, Cookie Monster and I was Big Bird, and the Big Bird was the actual Big Bird. It’s about 7-foot-4, and yiou looked out of the body and then you had these straps that went on since the head was a lot higher. There’s a lot of beer involved in Franklin Street, so we get down there and as the night went on, my straps broke, so the head would pivot. And so, I would be walking one way and the head would be facing the other, and it just became this funny…I didn’t know the head was on backwards. I had no idea. I see out of the body, so I’m just kinda walking around and people were talking to my ass-end. [laughs] The whole time peiople’d come up and start talking and go, ‘Hey, turn around.’ And I’d turn around, and they’d go, ‘No turn around.’ It was a mess. That year, there was no other Big Bird on Franklin Street.”

    Audio / Jon Langston talks about his most memorable Halloween.

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    Jon Langston (Halloween show) OC: …memorable Halloween. :59
    “So we played a show a few years ago in Baton Rouge and I go off stage and I come back on stage for the encore. I don’t know this until midway through the song, I’m just into the crowd, like I’m engaged. I’m in the zone, and I just see everyone, like everybody else behind me but me and I’m like what’s going on. I turn around and each of them has a different huge mask on, like one of those stuffed animal masks, like my drummer has a dinosaur head on. My guitar players, one of ‘em has monkey head on, the other has a unicorn head on. And my bass player has like a, I think a dog or cat head or something like that. I couldn’t finish the song I was laughing so hard just seeing them playing with these like over-sized huge mask heads on Halloween night. That was funny. It was a good prank, so that was probably the most memorable Halloween.”

    Audio / Jon Pardi reveals his favorite Halloween candy.

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    Jon Pardi (Halloween candy) OC: …during Halloween. :06
    “Man! The candy corn is pretty good, and that’s seasonal, so it only kinda pops out during Halloween.”

    Audio / Jon Pardi talks about his favorite Halloween costumes as a child.

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    Jon Pardi (Halloween) 1 OC: …the Superman. :15
    “Man, I went through phases of costumes – the Superman costume, then it was a ninja, then I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle one year. I remember rockin’ the Superman.”

    Audio / JORDAN DAVIS TALKS ABOUT HIS FAVORITE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES OVER THE YEARS.

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    Jordan Davis (Halloween costumes) OC: …jet black. :49
    “I can remember being really big into Power Rangers. I always liked the Red Ranger. I remember being Red Ranger one Halloween. I remember me and my brother being big into the Ninja Turtles. I was Donatello one year, which I think was the purple turtle. I think, though, my favorite Halloween was I was in college and I went as Luigi from Mario and Luigi, and I actually grew a legit mustache and dyed it jet black and ran into an e-girlfriend at the costume shop and completely forgot I had the mustache on. So, when Is saw her, she was like, ‘So, you’re going with a mustache nowadays, huh?’ [laughs] I remember being like, ‘I swear this is part of my Halloween costume.’ [laughs] When I dyed my mustache, my top lip was black for a week. Like I really did dye it jet black.”

    Audio / JORDAN DAVIS TALKS ABOUT HIS FAVORITE HALLOWEEN CANDY.

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    Jordan Davis (Halloween candy) OC: …some Starbursts. :21
    “My favorite Halloween candy [is] probably Reese’s or M&M’s, although I love the variety of Starburst. It’s one that I feel like I only eat at Halloween, because I feel like at Halloween one of the popular ones is the two-piece Starburst things. So, probably Reese’s, M&Ms and throw in some Starbursts.”

    Audio / CANDY CORN IS A PRETTY POLARIZING CANDY THAT ONLY COMES OUT AROUND HALLOWEEN. SOME LOVE IT; SOME HATE IT AND NEITHER OPINION IS WRONG. JORDAN DAVIS SIDES WITH THE HATERS (DON’T BLAME HIM), SINCE HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO CANDY CORN.

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    Jordan Davis (no candy corn) OC: …they’re awful. :05
    “You know what I never got? The candy corns. I’ve never been a candy corn guy. I think they’re awful.”

    Audio / Luke Bryan says you can tell a lot about your neighbors from what kind of Halloween candy they hand out.

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    Luke Bryan (Halloween) OC: …your teeth. :21
    “You can find out a lot about your neighbors by what kind of candy they put out. So, well, like full bars of Snickers bars, that’s what, and Reese’s cups, [but] the old chocolate popcorn ball of stuff, that’s no good either, like Dots – you get Dots one time of year and they pull your teeth.”

    Audio / Luke Bryan says his wife Caroline usually pick out his Halloween costumes.

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    Luke Bryan (Halloween costumes) OC: …always has. :20
    “Me and Caroline did one year where I dressed up as the old lady, and she dressed up as, she called herself a dirty old man. So, she went around acting like an old man saying snide comments to everybody. That was a fun one. The main thing is Caroline is big, she loves Halloween and always has.”

    Audio / Luke Bryan talks about his Halloween traditions.

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    Luke Bryan (Halloween) 2 OC: …with all that. :33
    “My tradition for Halloween is Caroline picks the outfit. I never know what I’m wearing. So that day, I’ll talk to the neighbors ‘cause I have a tractor back there and I’ll go get my tractor and get a big long trailer, and then I’ll run down to…a couple miles from the farm, we’ve got a big hay farmer that keeps hay and you run in there and pay him for his hay bales. And I’ll load the hay up and get the hayride ready and we’ll take all the kids behind the tractor and have a fun Halloween with all that.”

    Audio / Maddie & Tae sit on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to scary movies.

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    Maddie & Tae (Halloween) OC: …princesses. :24
    TAE: “Oooooh, Halloween [is] my favorite holiday. Anyone who knows me knows I love all things scary and gory, so especially on Halloween all the scary movies that come out in theaters, I am there every single time.” MADDIE: “And I never go with her because I hate scary things.” TAE: “You know what’s funny? As little girls, everyone wants to dress up as princesses, and I think I was a witch like six years in a row. I just wanted to be scary.” MADDIE: “Girl, I was like Jasmine and you know [other] princesses.”

    Audio / Travis Denning talks about his favorite – and probably most embarrassing – Halloween costume.

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    Travis Denning (Halloween costume) OC: …Busch Light. :21
    “Honestly, I think one of my most proud and embarrassed Halloween costumes is I went as Terry from Reno 9-1-1. I had the roller skates, the short-shorts, the tied-up shirt. Looking back, it wasn’t the manliest thing I ever did, but it got a lot of laughs. And I think that year my favorite candy I ever had was Busch Light.”

  • HALLOWEEN LINERS 2018

    Audio / LINER Adam Hambrick (Halloween)

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    “Hey! This is Adam Hambrick. Happy Halloween.”

     

    Audio / LINER Billy Currington (Trick or Treat)

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    “Trick or Treat, baby.”

    Audio / LINER Brandon Lay (Halloween)

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    “Hey everybody! This is Brandon Lay, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Brothers Osborne (Halloween)

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    “Hey! This is TJ, and I’m John, and we are Brothers Osborne. Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Carrie Underwood (Halloween)

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    “Hi! I’m Carrie Underwood, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Clare Dunn (Halloween)

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    “Hey! This is Clare Dunn, wishing you a very Happy Halloween.”

     

    Audio / LINER Darius Rucker (Halloween)

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    “Hey! What’s up, y’all? This is Darius Rucker, wishing you a very Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Dierks Bentley (Halloween)

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    “Hey! It’s Dierks Bentley, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Eric Church (Halloween)

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    “Hey! This is Eric Church, wishing you a very Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Jon Langston (Halloween)

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    “Hey y’all! I’m Jon Langston. Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Jordan Davis (Halloween)

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    “Hey! I’m Jordan Davis, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Josh Turner (Halloween)

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    “Hey y’all, I’m Josh Turner, wishing you a Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Kacey Musgraves (Halloween)

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    “Hey! It’s Kacey Musgraves, and I hope you have a Happy Halloween.”

     

    Audio / LINER Luke Bryan (Halloween)

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    “Hey! What’s up, y’all? I’m Luke Bryan, wishing you a very Happy Halloween. Boo!”

     

    Audio / LINER Maddie & Tae (Halloween)

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    “Hi! We’re Maddie & Tae. Happy Halloween.”

    Audio / LINER Sam Hunt (Happy Halloween)

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    “Hey everybody! This is Sam Hunt. Happy Halloween!”

  • ERIC CHURCH HAD A BLAST MAKING THE VIDEO FOR HIS SONG, “DESPERATE MAN.”

    Eric Church had a lot of fun making the video for his latest song, “Desperate Man.” He says it’s probably the favorite video he’s ever done in his career, due in large part to the song’s co-writer Ray Wylie Hubbard, as well as the theme of the video.

    “My favorite video of my entire career is ‘Desperate Man.’ It’s my favorite video. And I think that…you know maybe we’re all shady characters, but I thought everybody played their part so well in that video. I mean Ray looks like a drug dealer, polyester suit, all my band members are shady as s*%t, so the whole thing to me was just the perfect culmination at this part in our career,” says Eric.

    He adds, “With Ray Wylie Hubbard, to me, he’s a legend, he’s an icon. He’s exactly, he’s a troubadour. He’s the reason we should all aspire to do this. It’s not about money. It’s not about fame. It’s about, it’s what you’re born to do. It’s what you were put here to do. And I love the honesty and the integrity with which he’s done that throughout his career. So, for him to have a song that’s on the country chart and to be a part of mainstream country music is maybe one of the most favorite things I have ever done or been a part of.”

    Eric’s latest album, Desperate Man, is available beginning Friday (October 5th).

    Audio / Eric Church says the video for his latest hit song, “Desperate Man,” is his favorite video he’s ever done, due in part to co-writer and longtime “troubadour” Ray Wylie Hubbard. [CAUTION: bleeped word]

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    Eric Church (Desperate Man video) OC: …a part of. :46
    “My favorite video of my entire career is ‘Desperate Man.’ It’s my favorite video. And I think that…you know maybe we’re all shady characters, but I thought everybody played their part so well in that video. I mean Ray looks like a drug dealer, polyester suit, all my band members are shady as s*%t, so the whole thing to me was just the perfect culmination at this part in our career. So, anyway, long story short, with Ray Wylie Hubbard, to me, he’s a legend, he’s an icon, he’s exactly, he’s a troubadour. He’s the reason we should all aspire to do this. It’s not about money. It’s not about fame. It’s about, it’s what you’re born to do. It’s what you were put here to do. And I love the honesty and the integrity with which he’s done that throughout his career. So, for him to have a song that’s on the country chart and to be a part of mainstream country music is maybe one of the most favorite things I have ever done or been a part of.”

     

    Video / Eric Church Desperate Man video

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  • ERIC CHURCH LET THE CREATIVITY HAPPEN ON HIS NEW ALBUM, DESPERATE MAN.

    Eric Church released his new album, Desperate Man, on Friday (October 5th), and while he felt the need to make an album, he didn’t want to rush the process.

    “Everyone approached this initially as we need to make an album. We have to make a record, and I don’t believe you can ever make a record when you walk in going, ‘I have to make a record.’ I don’t think it works that way. Ever. Historically,” says Eric. “I think you just have to get in there, you have to tune your guitar and play nothing for three days. You gotta vibe it. You gotta feel it. And I think one that we don’t do very well these days is we don’t just let it happen. We don’t let the creativity happen. And I think for this album, Mr. Misunderstood and this one in our entire career, have been the most creative albums. We just let it happen. We walked in with less of plan than we have in the past, and we let the plan develop.”

    Eric will kick off his new Double Down Tour January 18th and 19th in Omaha, Nebraska.

    Audio / Eric Church says you have to let the creativity happen in the recording studio.

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    Eric Church (vibe in the studio) OC: …that to me :51
    I think my sense that we need more time really came from, everyone approached this initially as we need to make an album. We have to make a record, and I don’t believe you can ever make a record when you walk in going I have to make a record. I don’t think it works that way. Ever. Historically. And I think you just have to get in there, you have to tune your guitar and play nothing for three days. You gotta vibe it. You gotta feel it. And I think one that we don’t do very well these days is we don’t just let it happen. We don’t let the creativity happen. And I think for this album, Mr. Misunderstood and this one in our entire career have been the most creative albums. We just let it happen. We walked in with less of plan than we have in the past, and we let the plan develop. There is something interesting in that to me.”

  • ERIC CHURCH’S NEW ALBUM, DESPERATE MAN, IS AVAILABLE NOW.

    In August’s candid Rolling Stone cover story shortly after Eric Church announced his sixth album was in the works, readers learned exactly what the North Carolinian has been shouldering since his Holdin’ My Own Tour wrapped last May. It was the first time the songwriter had spoken out regarding the turmoil and angst of the last year, his processing of it all and the outcome: a collection of 11 songs that tell a broader story with today’s release of Desperate Man

    His longest stretch amid albums, Church’s pause between Mr. Misunderstood and Desperate Man was intentional. “I still felt shook up pretty good,” he says of the time he took following a serious health scare and having performed at Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, where dozens of country music fans lost their lives. “I wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t settled from all that happened – I was still reeling from Vegas, I felt displaced and not really connected to anything. I had to get back to enjoying what we were making and finding refuge in the music as a bit of an anchor.”

    But then came a breakthrough for the man Music Connection declares “a frankly magnificent songwriter,” in the form of two songs that represented an entirely new direction.

    “The Snake” – the first song greeting listeners on the album described by Esquire as “brilliant” – is a menacing, spoken-word parable with a political undertone. “The rattlesnake and the copperhead—that’s left/right, blue/red, however you say it,” says Church. “They sit there and fight all day to rile people up and then go get a drink. They’re working together while the whole world is burning down.”

    Then, immediately after, he wrote a simple song called “Hippie Radio,” an acoustic meditation on the ways that music is there to mark different phases in your life. And suddenly, Church started to get a notion of where this project might be headed – to a place Rolling Stone dubs “classic Church: expertly crafted and country radio-friendly, while also pushing boundaries in a way that sounds natural and unforced.”

    His songwriting prowess serves as the backbone of the project, with Vulture noting that his “devastating pen is pushed to center stage” as “Desperate Man weaves excellence out of ordinary threads.” Church, who had a hand in writing all 11 songs on the album, is also praised by the LA Times as “one of Nashville’s most forthright truth-tellers,” resulting in “a warm, appealingly ragged collection infused with wisdom and reassurance” which American Songwriter declares as “his most adventuresome album yet.”

    NPR opines in this week’s First Listen, “On Desperate Man, Church embodies his heroic image even more completely and convincingly than he has on the five albums that came before it.” As the New York Times acknowledges, “Church has never been an easy fit into Nashville’s familiar boxes – his music is as much rock as it is country” with Stereogum observing that this renegade spirit is what sets him apart: “Church is someone who’s at the top of his genre because he breaks its rules in big, exciting, arena-filling ways. If that’s not a rock star, I don’t know what is.”

    The three-time Country Music Association and seven-time Academy of Country Music Award winner confessed to American Songwriter in their September/October cover story, “For how far we have evolved, we still have the same basic problems. We are all broken, and we are all going to break. It doesn’t matter how far we’ve come or how many pills we come up with or how much technology distracts us; we still want the same things. And you can get through anything in your life with a jukebox, and a bar,” [“Jukebox And A Bar” is one of three songs Church penned solo on the album].

    And its closing track, “Drowning Man,” addresses the state of our times and the ways artists have (or haven’t) responded. “With what’s going on in the world, I felt forgotten, left behind,” says Church. “And if you go to any bar or concert in America, there are whole groups of forgotten people who are very much alike, who have more in common than not. There’s a lot of madness in the world that makes no sense, and it’s not all high tides and yachts.”

    Desperate Man and tickets to Church’s 2019 Double Down Tour are available today, October 5. Get the album here and visit EricChurch.com for ticketing information.

     

    Desperate Man Track List:

    1. The Snake (Written by Eric Church, Jeremy Spillman and Travis Meadows)
    2. Hangin’ Around (Written by Eric Church and Jeff Hyde)
    3. Heart Like A Wheel (Written by Eric Church)
    4. Some Of It (Written by Eric Church, Jeff Hyde, Clint Daniels and Bobby Pinson)
    5. Monsters (Written by Eric Church and Jeff Hyde)
    6. Hippie Radio (Written by Eric Church)
    7. Higher Wire (Written by Eric Church, Casey Beathard and Scooter Carusoe)
    8. Desperate Man (Written by Eric Church and Ray Wylie Hubbard)
    9. Solid (Written by Eric Church and Anders Osborne)
    10. Jukebox And A Bar (Written by Eric Church)
    11. Drowning Man (Written by Eric Church and Casey Beathard)

    Produced by Jay Joyce
    Executive Producer Arturo Buenahora, Jr.

    Audio / Eric Church says Desperate Man was the hardest record he’s ever made.

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    Eric Church (hardest record to make) OC: …we ended up. 1:20
    “Well I think, really from the last tour, the Holding My Own Tour, I realized that I am very grateful and humble that we get to do what we do. To go on every night, no openers and play for three hours, and see the way music has affected people lives, and they have affected mine. But it has turned into this thing, its own, living breathing organism that happened. And coming off of that, the biggest fear that I had was I didn’t just want to go back into the studio and make a record just because it was time to make a record. And I had some stuff going on. I mean, I had a personal thing with my health, and then I had, then Vegas happened and that will be with me forever. So, I think there was stuff that I had to process on the early part of making this record. And frankly, it made it difficult early. I mean it was tough. It was the toughest record that I’ve made out of all of them. It’s funny, it’s just like anything you do creatively, when you think this is what it’s going to be, this where we are headed, I promise you, were headed here. This is where you are going. Creativity will take over and you will end up on another path and that’s what happened here. And to credit, I think, the way we make records, or try to make records, is we will pay attention to that. We will change course, and we are not afraid to change course. So, I think for me, my favorite thing about this album, is I know where we started and where we ended up.”

    Audio / LINER Eric Church (album available right now)

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    Video / Desperate Man video

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  • ERIC CHURCH WILL “DOUBLE DOWN” FOR HIS NEW TOUR NEXT YEAR.

    Photo Credit: Anthony D’Angio

    Eric Church’s October 5 Desperate Man release is one of the year’s most anticipated albums, and now fans have even more reasons to look forward to its release day: 37 of them to be exact.

    Church’s 2019 Double Down Tour will see this month’s American Songwriter cover artist visit 19 cities (list below) to perform six albums worth of material across two very different nights of music as well as a stadium-sized tour stop in Nashville, Tennessee, more than doubling the capacity where he previously set Bridgestone Arena’s attendance record upon the finale stop of his Holdin’ My Own Tour in 2017.

     

    In a candid cover-story interview in July, Rolling Stone praised Church for “pushing boundaries in a way that sounds natural and unforced.” The same goes for his touring in 2019, again foregoing an opening act and instead treating fans to dynamic marathon sets across back-to-back nights.

    In keeping with Church’s commitment to giving his fan club — known as the Church Choir — priority access, they will be able to purchase tickets during the fan club presale.

    To keep scalpers at bay and to ensure tickets end up in the hands of real fans, after the fan club presale, tickets will be sold during Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan presale. All fans interested in priority access to tickets should get verified. Registration begins Friday, Sept. 21 at 10 am CT.

    Tickets inside Church’s stage will be made available exclusively to Church Choir members and only through the brand new Eric Church app. Church is taking full control of the very best seats inside the stage and offering them using cutting edge technology. Church Choir members will also have the opportunity to take advantage of exclusive hotel deals in all Double Down Tour cities plus additional surprises related to the tour. More information is available at ericchurch.com.

    Desperate Man is available for preorder now, with the title track, “Heart Like A Wheel” and “Monsters” available upon preorder.

    Eric Church’s 2019 Double Down Tour dates are as follows: 
    January 18, 2019     Omaha, NE                CHI Health Center+
    January 19, 2019     Omaha, NE                CHI Health Center+
    January 25, 2019     St. Louis, MO            Enterprise Center+
    January 26, 2019     St. Louis, MO            Enterprise Center+
    February 1, 2019     Boston, MA               TD Garden+
    February 2, 2019     Boston, MA               TD Garden+
    February 8, 2019     Minneapolis, MN      Target Center+
    February 9, 2019     Minneapolis, MN      Target Center+
    February 15, 2019   Detroit, MI                 Little Caesars Arena+
    February 16, 2019   Detroit, MI                 Little Caesars Arena+
    February 22, 2019   Cincinnati, OH           U.S. Bank Arena*
    February 23, 2019   Cincinnati, OH           U.S. Bank Arena*
    March 1, 2019         Kansas City, MO        Sprint Center+
    March 2, 2019         Kansas City, MO        Sprint Center+
    March 8, 2019         Toronto, ON               Scotiabank Arena+
    March 9, 2019         Toronto, ON               Scotiabank Arena+
    March 15, 2019       Greensboro, NC         Greensboro Coliseum+
    March 16, 2019       Greensboro, NC         Greensboro Coliseum+
    March 22, 2019       Chicago, IL                Allstate Arena*
    March 23, 2019       Chicago, IL                Allstate Arena*
    March 29, 2019       Milwaukee, WI          Fiserv Forum+
    March 30, 2019       Milwaukee, WI          Fiserv Forum+
    April 12, 2019         Dallas, TX                 American Airlines Center*
    April 13, 2019         Dallas, TX                 American Airlines Center*
    April 19, 2019         Cleveland, OH           Quicken Loans Arena*
    April 20, 2019         Cleveland, OH           Quicken Loans Arena*
    April 26, 2019         Greenville, SC           Bon Secours Wellness Arena*
    April 27, 2019         Greenville, SC           Bon Secours Wellness Arena*
    May 3, 2019            Pittsburgh, PA            PPG Paints Arena+
    May 4, 2019            Pittsburgh, PA            PPG Paints Arena+
    May 10, 2019          Denver, CO                Pepsi Center*
    May 11, 2019          Denver, CO                Pepsi Center*
    May 17, 2019          Los Angeles, CA       STAPLES Center*
    May 18, 2019          Los Angeles, CA       STAPLES Center*
    May 25, 2019          Nashville, TN            Nissan Stadium#
    June 28, 2019          George, WA               The Gorge Amphitheatre#
    June 29, 2019          George, WA               The Gorge Amphitheatre#
    +on sale October 5 at 10am local time
    *on sale October 12 at 10am local time
    #on sale October 19 at 10am local time

    Audio / AUDIO of Eric Church announcing his 2019 Double Down Tour.

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    Audio / Eric Church talks about performing live for his fans.

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    Eric Church (performing live for fans) OC: …that type of crowd. :38
    “For me, every night, I try to empty the tank. There’s always that energy floating around. I mean, it’s a palpable thing, and it’s up to me to start that exchange and get the crowd to give it back to me and then watch it build on itself and just to have that experience. You know, we’ve got this night. You’re not going to see me for a while; you’re not going to see me for a while. I love being able to capitalize on that moment and trying to live in that moment and get as much energy exchange between us and the crowd as we can. I love that. That’s my favorite part of what we do. I love…I’m very passionate about my music, and I love people who are passionate about the music too, and I love playing a show for that type of crowd.”

  • ERIC CHURCH DESPERATE MAN ALBUM SPECIAL.

    Eric Church releases his new album, Desperate Man, on Friday (October 5th), and we’ve got a one-hour radio special, featuring some of the tracks from the new album, as well as a few of his hits (see link below).

    “What I thought this album was going to be—well, it wasn’t that at all,” says Eric Church. “But once we found the template and got on the right path, we were really knocking them down. It took a while, but then we got most of the album done in a few days.”

    Church’s sixth studio album, Desperate Man, available October 5th, marks the end of the longest break in his career between putting out new music. In the three years since the sudden, surprise release of Mr. Misunderstood, though, he has experienced some of the highest peaks and some of the biggest challenges in his work and in his life and most are present in this new collection of songs.

    Since his last recordings, Church had also been through a serious health scare and had performed at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, where dozens of country music fans lost their lives. “I still felt shook up pretty good,” he says. “I wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t settled from all that happened—I was still reeling from Vegas, I felt displaced and not really connected to anything. I had to get back to enjoying what we were making and finding refuge in the music as a bit of an anchor.”

    He called his manager and said that he might need to take a break and hold off on the recording sessions (“that’s never happened to me before,” he notes). But then came a breakthrough, in the form of two songs that represented an entirely new direction.

    “The Snake” is a menacing, spoken-word parable with a political undertone. “The rattlesnake and the copperhead—that’s left/right, blue/red, however you say it,” says Church. “They sit there and fight all day to rile people up and then go get a drink. They’re working together while the whole world is burning down.”

    Then, immediately after, he wrote a simple song called “Hippie Radio,” an acoustic meditation on the ways that music is there to mark different phases in your life. And suddenly, Church started to get a notion of where this project might be headed. “It was making my Spidey Sense go up,” says Church. “It was different, soulful, a total left turn from what we had been doing. The coolness started to come in. Plus, it was saying something, and that’s what artists are supposed to do—give us guidance for where we are and where we’re headed.”

    The sessions became more loose and experimental. The bulk of the material was written in the studio; he came up with “Hangin’ Around” in an hour and cut it that same day. For “Drowning Man,” Joyce secretly set up a microphone under Church’s foot, and the tapping forms the main kick on the final drum track. “My creative juices were really flowing,” says Church. “I was trying different sounds and calling more audibles than ever before. I really enjoyed the journey of where it was starting to take me.”

    We are celebrating this new release with a one-hour special featuring several tracks from the new album, plus a few of Eric’s biggest hits.

    The program is non-exclusive and commercial-free.

    TOTAL RUNNING TIME:

    @ One hour – delivery via link Wednesday evening (October 3rd)

    CLEARANCE WINDOW:

    Friday, October 5th – Sunday, October 14th

    To download the album special, click here.