The biggest risk of his career has certainly paid off.
Eric Church is a country superstar, who has had multiple radio hits, won major awards and put out hit albums, but he comes from humble beginnings. He grew up in small town Granite Falls, North Carolina, where his dad worked in the furniture business (like many did in that area), 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.
And making the movie to Music City was a huge risk, not only because he didn’t know a soul there or anything about the town, but also because he had his entirely life set up back home. Eric explained on the Hometown Titans podcast with Taylor Zarzour that just making that move to even try to make his dreams a reality was the biggest risk he’s ever taken in his career, explaining that he left everything behind, including a fiancée, to become who he is today.
Eric said it’s one of many he’s taken along the way, though Eric admits he didn’t even know where Music Row was, and considering this all took place in the early-to-mid 2000s, he had to use a map just to figure it out:
“I’ve taken a lot of them… it’s a pretty big risk just to do this. If I look at my overall life, that’s a pretty big risk just to do it. Because nobody from where I was from had ever done anything like that, in anything, right?
I remember, the advice I got before I came to town, I mean, I did finally graduate with a marketing degree and had a bunch of job offers and all this stuff. And I had a fiancée, so everything was kind of laid out, this path over here, door #2. And I chose door #1. So I think if I look back at my life, that’s a pretty big risk. There’s been a ton along the way.
We try to take risks as much as we can, and put ourselves in peril as much as we can. But that’s just my nature, but if I look back on it, the actual decision just to come to Nashville… I didn’t know a soul. I knew not one person. Not one. [That] was the biggest thing. I didn’t know where Music Row was. This was back before you could pull it up on your phone… I had to find it on a damn map.”
If that story sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve heard it in Eric’s song “What I Almost Was,” which was included on his 2006 debut album, Sinners Like Me. Eric co-wrote it with Casey Beathard and Michael P. Heeney, and it pretty much tells you exactly how everything went down when he left for Music City.
It’s always been my favorite verse where he talks about that fiancée and her dad, realizing that he came “awful close” to having a nice corner office and country club membership, though he’d be answering to “no one, but her and him”:
“Yeah, I moved on back home
And came awful close to being some son-in-law to some CEO
Could’ve been a corner office, country club, suit-and-tie man
Answerin’ to no one, but her and him
I ran out on his money, ran out on her love
At four in the mornin’ I loaded my truck
I left my home town in a big cloud of dust
I just had to follow my gut
And I thank God I ain’t what I almost was”
It’s a great song, Sinners Like Me is one of the greatest debut albums of all-time in my humble opinion, and while I suspected a lot of what he said in the song was true simply from putting together pieces of what he’s said about that whole journey over the years, it’s so interesting to hear him talk about that time and how he feels like it was a massive risk, especially considering everything he was leaving behind.
I’ve never really heard him talk about the fact that he was actually engaged and planning to live in his hometown and work forever, but it gives the song a whole new meaning to know that it’s all completely true. Turn it up…
“What I Almost Was”
The full podcast is available here:
