ERIC CHURCH IS CELEBRATING THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS HEART & SOUL PROJECT.

Artist: Eric Church

Eric Church is celebrating the one-year anniversary of his three-record collection, Heart & Soul, this week. The project was a huge undertaking and he had no idea it would end up on three separate records.

“I thought it was one album. I didn’t know if it would even happen. The great thing about this song, ‘Heart On Fire,’ is it was the first one we recorded, and if this one had not had worked, I don’t know that the project would’ve worked, because at the time, I had not convinced everybody that this was the thing to do,” says Eric. “My band was pretty skeptical, my producer was skeptical, the songwriters I had onsite were skeptical. What I found is everybody kind of committed the way I thought they would with we knew what we had to do, and we had a songwriter that knew, hey, we have to do this because we’re recording tonight, and we have to get this right and we have to figure this out. This can’t be bad. And you really had people that really just committed to it and the band and the producer, they committed to it, and then I was singing, I committed to it. And it just became four, five, six songs in, we knew we kinda had a special thing going.”

Eric took his band, producer and songwriters out of the normal environments to write and record at a restaurant in the mountains of North Carolina, not knowing what the project would look or sound like, but knowing he wanted to shake things up a bit. What he found was a huge commitment to making it all work.

“What I found is there’s something about doing something different that there’s a belief there,” he says. “Every night we would eat together. Every morning we would be together. And they respected the players, the songwriters. They all respected what I was trying to do. I was honest with them. I said, ‘Hey, I may bring in a song. This song may suck but I wrote it today so give me – I have not slept. Give me a break.’ So, I think at some point in time they committed themselves to what we were trying to do and they gave 110% of that. They knew this dude has been up all night. This dude is trying and we’re going to try, too. And I think that there’s something to that overall, pulling on the rope the same way that made it – made it what it is. Made the project what it is.”

Church released the first of his three records, Heart, April 16th, 2021. He created the middle album of the trilogy, &, specifically for the Church Choir (his fan club), which was available exclusively to them only as a vinyl record and was released April 20th, 2021. The third installment, Soul, was released April 23rd.

Eric is racing to the top of the country charts with his latest single, “Heart On Fire.”

Heart Track List
Lyrics linked HERE, songwriters in parentheses

Heart On Fire (Eric Church)
Heart Of The Night (Eric Church, Jeremy Spillman, Jeff Hyde, Ryan Tyndell, Travis Hill)
Russian Roulette (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
People Break (Eric Church, Luke Laird)
Stick That In Your Country Song (Davis Naish, Jeffrey Steele)
Never Break Heart (Eric Church, Luke Dick)
Crazyland (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Michael Heeney)
Bunch Of Nothing (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde)
Love Shine Down (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeffrey Steele)

& Track List
Lyrics linked HERE, songwriters in parentheses

Through My Ray-Bans (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Barry Dean)
Doing Life With Me (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeffrey Steele)
Do Side (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Kiss Her Goodbye (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Mad Man (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Lone Wolf (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde, Ryan Tyndell)

Soul Track List
Lyrics linked HERE, songwriters in parentheses

Rock & Roll Found Me (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Driver Williams)
Look Good And You Know It (Eric Church, Jonathan Singleton, Travis Meadows)
Bright Side Girl (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde, Scotty Emerick, Clint Daniels)
Break It Kind Of Guy (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Luke Dick)
Hell Of A View (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
Where I Wanna Be (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeremy Spillman, Ryan Tyndell)
Jenny (Eric Church)
Bad Mother Trucker (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Luke Dick, Jeremy Spillman)
Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones (Casey Beathard)

Eric takes his Gather Again Tour to Boise, Idaho April 29th.

Eric Church (Heart & Soul Anniversary) OC: …keep it going. :55
“I thought it was one album. I didn’t know if it would even happen. The great thing about this song, ‘Heart On Fire,’ is it was the first one we recorded, and if this one had not had worked, I don’t know that the project would’ve worked, because at the time, I had not convinced everybody that this was the thing to do. My band was pretty skeptical, my producer was skeptical, the songwriters I had onsite were skeptical. What I found is everybody kind of committed the way I thought they would with we knew what we had to do, and we had a songwriter that knew, hey, we have to do this because we’re recording tonight, and we have to get this right and we have to figure this out. This can’t be bad. And you really had people that really just committed to it and the band and the producer, they committed to it, and then I was singing, I committed to it. And it just became four, five, six songs in, we knew we kinda had a special thing going and then, you just wanted to keep it going.”

Eric Church (respecting the process made this album what it is) OC: …what it is. :47
“You know what I found is there’s something about doing something different that there’s a belief there. Every night we would eat together. Every morning we would be together. And they respected the players, the songwriters. They all respected what I was trying to do. I was honest with them. I said ‘hey, I may bring in a song. This song may suck but I wrote it today so give me – I have not slept. Give me a break.’ So I think at some point in time they committed themselves to what we were trying to do and they gave 110% of that. They knew this dude has been up all night. This dude is trying and we’re going to try, too. And I think that there’s something to that overall, pulling on the rope the same way that made it – made it what it is. Made the project what it is.”

Eric Church (Heart & Soul Anniversary message) OC: …in our career. :41 NOTE: music bed underneath
“I want to say Happy Anniversary to the Heart & Soul album. I can’t believe it’s been a year since it’s been out. It will always be, they will always be among my most favorite records to make because we wrote and recorded a song the same day. It was a challenge, it was hard as hell, but it was also the most in-the-moment, the most spiritual, the most connected I think I’ve been to a project, and it has been a joy to play those on the Gather Again Tour. It’s been a joy to watch them grow, it’s been a joy to throw in new songs here and there and watch people react to it. It’s just been a lot of fun. My favorite thing as an artist is to watch these grow over time. It’s happened every time in our career.”