ERIC CHURCH PERFORMS 'DRINK IN MY HAND' OUTSIDE WITH THE FANS AT THE CMT MUSIC AWARDS. (AUDIO)

Eric Church took to the stage located outside of Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena at Wednesday night’s CMT Music Awards to perform his recent No. 1 hit, “Drink in My Hand.” Fans were singing along to every word and even held up their own drinks to punctuate the chorus! Eric tells us it was the perfect setting for the performance. “We’re certainly in our element to be out there, outside with the fans, live, in the middle of ‘em. It’s what we’re used to, it’s what we do. I think it makes it better for the live show, and it makes it better certainly for us, you know, ‘cause we feel comfortable being able to go out there and give it to ‘em and throw our fist in the air and throw our beer in the air and give ‘em ‘Drink in My Hand’ the way that they get it every night.”

Eric is poised to hit the top of the country charts with his latest smash, “Springsteen!”

AUDIO: Eric Church talks about how performing “Drink in My Hand” outside at the CMT Music Awards was the perfect stage.

Eric Church (CMT Drink) OC: …every night. :58

“It really was born on the road, it was born live. I mean, the inspiration fr the song came from songwriters that were out one night seeing our show and saw the people putting their drinks up in the air. It’s actually quite coordinated for a bunch of drunk people, and that’s where ‘Drink in My Hand’ came from. So, it’s really cool now to see the inspiration for that song and where it came from and how it’s kind of come full circle with what we wrote about that the people were the inspiration. Now we have this song that they can sing back to us every night. Really cool for the CMT Awards, I mean, we’re certainly in our element to be out there, outside with the fans, live, in the middle of ‘em. It’s what we’re used to, it’s what we do. I think it makes it better for the live show, and it makes it better certainly for us, you know, ‘cause we feel comfortable being able to go out there and give it to ‘em and throw our fist in the air and throw our beer in the air and give ‘em ‘Drink in My Hand’ the way that they get it every night.”