Eric Church and just an acoustic guitar… it’s damn near perfection.
Today, Chief is stripping back his current single, “Heart On Fire,” from the Heart record of his 2021 triple album.
It was a solo write by Chief and is the third single from that album (he just said that “Doing Life With Me” will be the next one, one of the few publicly released songs from his & album).
He also noted previously that “Heart” was actually the very first song they recorded when they holed up in the mountains of North Carolina to record for 28 days straight, which really got the momentum going in terms of the sound and pace for the rest of the triple album.
I always love hearing any artist put a more simple production behind any given song, because it really allows the lyrics and vocals to shine.
But with this song especially, because of the louder, more rocking production on the original studio version, this acoustic performance almost like getting a brand new tune… and I’m here for it:
Eric Church On Trippy “Heart On Fire” Music Video
There aren’t many people who’ve been a mainstay in country music over a 15-year span, and Eric Church has sustained it.
He met up with Amazon Music’s Country Heat Weekly podcast, and talked everything from winning Entertainer of the Year, his new album, The Gather Again Tour and more.
And when it came down to discussing the Heart & Soul triple album, he admitted his favorite album of the three:
“I like ‘Heart,’ ‘Heart’ is my favorite. I don’t know I’m a kid I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, and it’s got a more southern heartland thing that I like.
My wife’s is ‘Soul,’ she’s more R&B and likes the dance stuff.
My kids they like the ‘&,’ because it’s a little different. It’s a little more subtle and stuff.”
Can’t say I disagree Eric.
He then discussed one of the wildest music videos I’ve ever seen, the video for “Heart On Fire.” In the video, he takes you through all of his past music videos, but his mouth is singing “Heart On Fire.”
He went in-depth about how they pulled that off, calling the whole thing “deep fake weird”:
“It’s kinda deep fake weird… it’s the weirdest thing watching your mouth do things it never did.
We shot the end when I’m sitting in front of the TV, and then we did the last part, but they put these dots with a little ink pen, and they put these dots all over my face, and they did these cameras that focused all on these dots.”
They knew where my facial profile was and I would have to turn this many degrees and lip synch the songs so it was was wild.”
But here’s where they hit a snag:
“The redneck in me… I don’t have the same facial hair through all that so my thing was, I said “well wait, you’re getting my mouth, but is it gonna matter that I don’t have the same facial hair?” And it was so funny, the guy goes… ‘Hmm, I don’t know’.
It’s like really smart people that don’t think of the most common sense thing… they thought of all the dots, they thoughts of all the 3D cameras, they didn’t think about the facial hair… all these MIT grads, and they didn’t think about the facial hair.”
And when it comes to making music videos in general, Eric answered with a resounding NO.
“No, not at all… No.”
