He’s certainly come a long way.
Eric Church recently opened his new Nashville bar on Broadway, Chief’s, and it’s definitely different than all the other artist-owned bars on Broadway.
And notably, the Neon Steeple stands out as a very unique, one-of-a-kind feature.
The two-story music venue is almost like a mini Ryman Auditorium, featuring stained glass windows with some of Church’s heroes backlighting pews in the balcony and serving as a place for artists to come and play their own music – not the cover songs that you mostly hear on Broadway.
He’s actually currently doing a residency there, To Beat The Devil, where Eric is playing songs fans have never heard before and opening up about different parts of his life. And in a recent interview with CBS Mornings, he reflected on what’s brought him to this moment.
He says when he first moved to Music City over 20 years ago, he couldn’t even get hired as a bartender on Broadway, much less secure any sort of gig to play his music:
“I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t even know where Nashville started and ended. I just knew that I came to the center of it.
Broadway didn’t want me at all… I couldn’t get a gig on Broadway. I couldn’t even bartend on Broadway, you know.”
But he stuck to his brand, his music, and who he was as an artist, and two decades later, is considered a modern-day outlaw of sorts within mainstream country with thousands of dedicated fans all over the world.
And yes, Eric admits that having his big bar on Broadway, in the heart of Nashville, feels “redemptive,” and even though “they didn’t want me here,” they certainly can’t kick him out now:
“I was just drawn here. And then I got here, and it wasn’t exactly what I thought. So it’s fun to be back here now… feels good, feels redemptive.
I mean, it’s one of those things where I think about it a lot, it’s just a redemptive thing to look at what this is and the care that we put into this place to make it feel that way. I started here, you know. They didn’t want me here, I’m here. They can’t kick me out now.”
I love his attitude and outlook, and what a cool way to kind of gave the middle finger to the establishment, so to speak, after so many years of hard work to get to the point of even being able to do something as big as opening a bar on Broadway… it’s gotta feel good to prove people wrong by doing things the way you want to do them, even if you have all the awards and hits that Eric has.
You can watch his full interview here:
It only feels right to cue this one up now…
“The Outsiders”
