Eric Church On How New Artists Are Set Up To Fail: “They Want The Easiest Path To Chart Success”

Eric Church country music
Joe Pugliese

If you’re a new artist, getcha pen and notepad out… class is in session.

And the professor? Mr. Eric Church.

In a 2021 interview with Apple Music’s Kelleigh Bannen, Eric got to talking a ton of different topics including the Heart & Soul triple album, the 1933 Martin that Keith Urban gave him for Christmas, the Super Bowl, and more, but he also got into his creative process, picking singles, and the difference between building fans and building radio hits.

This is the part you’re gonna want to write down:

“New artists are set up in a lot of ways to fail and they don’t know it, because what promotion wants, and you know this… they want the easiest path to chart success, but normally the easiest path to chart success, is not something that’s going to matter.

That’s why it’s the easiest path. It’s what researches well, it’s what tests well, but that’s not what sticks. That’s not sticky.

And I think that a lot of artists don’t understand that they’re already in a bad spot. How do you become sticky? How do you care? Why does somebody know your name?

And labels are not set up to do that because those things, that’s different songs, those are songs that only go to 20.”

For many artists, you have to earn the right to call shots.

Eric obviously has, and when he retreated up into the mountains to write and record the triple album, he let creativity be the driving force.

It’s the opposite of sitting down and trying to write a “hit.”

“It reaffirmed what I believe about music, is when creativity is the lead, that’s how you lead it, it works. It always works.

And if that’s not leading, if you’re trying to make a record that, if you sit there and go, ‘Hey, I want to make this kind of record.’ You got a problem.

When you sit down and go, ‘I want to write this kind of song,’ you’re screwed.”

Heed his words people.

Heed his words…

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