15 minutes | Monday, 18 December 2023
'The CountryLine Songwriter Series', is where you'll hear from some of the most successful artists and songwriters working in Nashville today. Country music is all about storytelling and this is where you'll discover the stories from the people themselves of how they managed to find their way into such a competitive industry and rise to the top. What motivates and inspires them and what they've learnt along the way.
Eric Church grew up in Granite Falls, North Carolina, and began singing as a child. At 13, he started writing songs, later teaching himself to play guitar. While attending college at Appalachian State, he formed a band, the Mountain Boys, who played around western North Carolina. After graduating with a degree in marketing, he moved to Nashville to pursue a career in country music. It took him a year to get a publishing deal with Sony/ATV, after which he started having his songs recorded by other artists, an example being Terri Clark's version of "The World Needs a Drink”, Church met producer Jay Joyce, who took an interest in him as a recording artist, and they began making demos. That led to his being signed by Capitol Records Nashville.
Church's debut single, "How 'Bout You”, was released in early 2006, and it had reached the country Top 20 by the time Capitol issued his first album, “Sinners Like Me”, in July 2006. The record was both a critical and commercial success, and he followed it up with “Carolina”, in 2009, which swung for the contemporary country fences and hit them, scoring two Top Ten singles on the country charts with "Love Your Love the Most", (certified gold) and "Hell on the Heart”, In 2010, Church scored another gold single with "Smoke a Little Smoke”, and he won Top New Solo Vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards for that calendar year.
“Chief”, was Church's major breakout album: upon its July 2011 release, it debuted at number one on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. Soon afterward, "Drink in My Hand", climbed to the top of the country charts, becoming Church's first number one single. Its popularity was eclipsed in the summer of 2012 by "Springsteen”, a ballad that also reached number one on the country charts but additionally crossed over to the pop Top 20. Two other singles were pulled from “Chief”, -- "Creepin'", and "Like Jesus Does", -- and the LP won Album of the Year at the 2012 CMA Awards. Chief also earned him his first Grammy nominations, for Best Country Album as well as Best Country Song and Solo Performance for "Springsteen”.
Early in 2013, Church released the live album “Caught in the Act”, the album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200. Church spent the rest of 2013 working on his next album. The first taste of this work was the heavy rock of "The Outsiders”, a single that turned out to be the album's title track. The Outsiders arrived after considerable anticipation and acclaim in February 2014 and became his second album to hit number one on both the country and overall charts. Church received four Grammy nominations that year and The Outsiders racked up five hit singles -- the biggest were the ballads "Give Me Back My Hometown", and "Talladega”, both of which reached number one on Billboard's U.S. Country Airplay chart -- and while "Like a Wrecking Ball”, remained on the charts, Church released a brand-new full-length album, “Mr. Misunderstood”, as a surprise in the first week of November 2015. “Mr. Misunderstood”, debuted at number two on Billboard's Top 200 and country charts, eventually earning a gold certification and winning CMA's Album of the Year in 2016. It was around this time he chatted with Stuart Banford.