Brick by brick.
Last week, Eric Church got fans speculating when a mysterious countdown appeared on his website with no explanation. Was it new music, or a tour, or an announcement on the opening of his upcoming Nashville bar, Chief’s?
Well in typical Church fashion, he found a way to surprise us all. Remember, this is the same guy who bought a vinyl pressing factory overseas so that he could mail a surprise album to his fans without his label knowing.
And this week, fans got another unexpected surprise from Chief in their mailbox: A deed to a brick in Church’s new bar.
Eric announced this morning that the more than 40,000 members of his Church Choir fan club will each receive a deed to a brick in Chief’s, with each brick containing a unique number that fans can enter on his website to find its location and neighbors within the bar.
In a message to fans, Church said that he wanted to give ownership of the bar to the fans who have been with him throughout his career:
“This is our house. I’ve been involved in every step of restoring this historic building into a place we can call our own. And because you have been with me every step of my career, I’m proud to dedicate a physical brick of the Chief’s building to each and every one of you.
You’ve helped me build my career brick by brick, and I want the whole world to know that the building is yours.”
And in an interview with Rolling Stone, Chief made clear that he wants his bar to be different than other artist bars on Broadway:
“This is ours. It’s not something that I’m renting or leasing until the next artist comes along, then when that artist falls out of favor, all you do is change the sign out and it goes to the next one.”
As with pretty much everything in his career, Church is doing his bar his own way. While most of the bars in downtown Nashville that are named for country artists are actually run by a hospitality company that licenses the artists’ name, Church actually bought the building for Chief’s and has been intimately involved in the planning and design of his bar, along with boutique real estate management firm AJ Capital.
And along with the bricks, Church also launched a new digital component to his fan club to give even more to the Church Choir. New digital collectibles, which are now available to fan club members, will allow fans to redeem them for things like copies of Church’s vinyl (and even vinyl for life, which will give fans all future EC albums), guitar lessons with his guitarist Driver Williams, or guest DJ spots on his SiriusXM channel, Outsiders Radio.
The digital collectibles will also come with exclusive Eric Church content, like video messages from Chief or unreleased demos. (Right now fan club members who received a “Founders Brick” can listen to the unreleased demo of “Sinners Like Me,” which for me makes it worth the cost of the fan club already).
It’s pretty cool that Church continues to find new ways to connect with fans – and continues to do things differently than every other artist out there, whether that’s in his music or building a bar in Nashville.
Oh – and as for an opening date for Chief’s? Well it appears that we’ll be hearing more about that very soon, because another mysterious countdown has appeared on the bar’s website.
Come ON with it.
