Eric Church has scored his first No. 1 single with “Drink in My Hand.” The song, which is the latest release from his No. 1 album Chief, hit the top of both the Billboard and Country Aircheck/Mediabase country charts. The singer was inspired to write “Drink in My Hand” after coming off-stage while on tour with Miranda Lambert. “I was on the bus with a couple of co-writers of mine, and we had just walked offstage and saw the crowd, saw our fans and saw ‘em put their beers in the air,” recalls Eric. “You could just tell that they had worked all week and this was their moment to let all that wash away. And that was where the title was born from really. ‘Everything’s OK now, I’ve got a drink in my hand, and I’m relaxing and I’m chilling.’ That just became a really good song born from our fans.” Catch Eric on tour when he hits the road on Thursday with his Blood, Sweat & Beers Tour.

• Eric was signed to Capitol Records in 2006 and released his debut album, Sinners Like Me, which included the Top 20 hits, “How ‘Bout You,” “Two Pink Lines” and “Guys Like Me.” The album also featured the critically-acclaimed “Lightning,” which helped Eric secure both his publishing and record deals.
• In 2009, the North Carolina native released his sophomore project, Carolina, containing his first two Top 10 hits – “Love Your Love the Most” and “Hell on the Heart,” as well as the party favorite, “Smoke a Little Smoke.” The disc has now been certified gold for more than 500-thousand copies sold. His third album, Chief, was released last summer and has already been certified gold.

AUDIO: Eric Church explains how he came up with his latest single, “Drink in My Hand.”

Eric Church (Drink in my Hand) OC: …play that one. :42

“‘Drink in My Hand’ is absolutely, when we wrote this song …we were on tour, this is a song that was written after the cabin, and we were out on tour. I think we were on tour with Miranda at the time, and I was on the bus with a couple of co-writers of mine, and we had just walked offstage and saw the crowd, saw our fans and saw ‘em put their beers in the air. You could just tell that they had worked all week and this was their moment to let all that wash away. And that was where the title was born from really. ‘Everything’s OK now, I’ve got a drink in my hand, and I’m relaxing and I’m chilling.’ That just became a really good song born from our fans. They’re the ones that inspired that, and it was on tour. It was on a tour bus, and I’ll never forget it. I’m happy it turned out the way it did, and I think our fans are gonna love putting their beer, or whatever they’re drinking, up in the air when we play that one.”