The good old days… or something like that.
Eric Church just put out his Evangeline vs. The Machine album last week, and he appeared on Bobby Bones’ podcast to talk about the project as well as his early days in Nashville and how he first got interested in music.
He recalled getting a guitar when he was a young teenager, because he had started writing songs but had nowhere to get the melodies out of his head. He took to it very quickly, and started playing in bands around the age of 17. Eric grew up in small town Granite Falls, North Carolina, where his dad worked in the furniture business, and Eric credits his mom, Rita for his singing talents.
Eric’s career really started, though, when he was in college at Appalachian State University, where he formed a band called The Mountain Boys with his late brother, Brandon, as well as his roommate and another guitarist. They played local gigs around western North Carolina, and Eric was mostly focused on music, rather than getting his marketing degree. He graduated because he promised his dad he would, but left for Nashville soon after and the rest, as they say… is history.
Eric got to talking in the interview about the fact that so many young artists today don’t have to get out and play in front of people in-person before the earn an audience because of social media, which shows up in the live shows when they eventually do play shows and concerts. It reminded him of his early days playing in shady places behind chicken wire, but the story he told about Brandon was so funny, and really goes to show what they went through cutting their teeth back then.
Eric’s younger brother, Brandon, died at the age of 36 in 2018 after he suffered two seizures and went into cardiac arrest, and it was reported a the time that he had battled with alcohol abuse and the health complications came as a result of that. But when Eric was first starting out, his brother was right there with him onstage… well, most of the time:
“It was the fastest thing I was able to just kind of get. You learn a lot of that, too, in earning your salt, where I got in a band pretty quick. I mean, I was in a band at, maybe 17, I wasn’t 18 years old. And I started just playing in bands in some shady places, I did the chicken wire thing, I’ve been at that show.
I’ve had a band member leave the stage during a song and go fight a guy in the parking lot, and make it back before the end of the song. And that guy was my brother. So we’ve done that… when you make it back before the end of the song, that’s doing quick work. But it was a Skynyrd song, so it was a little long.
But I’ve done all those things, and you learn a lot from those situations.”
Well, I’m assuming it was probably “Free Bird” he left during, so if that’s which song it was, I can see how he was able to get all of that done and be back for the end, but still, Eric’s right… that is quick work, though I feel like there’s more to this story and I need to hear it now.
Honestly, if you don’t play a few shady dive bars on your way to the top of the music industry, are you even in a band? I agree that you’re just missing part of that journey that shapes an artist, and really teaches you how to win over a crowd and do what it takes to make live music interesting and fun. It’s obviously not an easy job, especially to get to the level that Eric is at now, and clearly those early days molded him into the incredible live performer and musician he is now.
Hey, you can get a lot done in nine minutes…
“Free Bird”
