It's safe to say that the last few years haven't been kind to Eric Church. The singer went from tragedy to tragedy almost without pause, but he eventually found a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaking with CBS, Church explained why his new bar Chief's is a refuge after almost dying and also later losing his brother. He said he turned to writing music. "I went through a period there... lot of darkness in that period. 8 months of (being) pretty dark. I got through like everything else I've gotten through in my life." He continued, "I turned to the one thing I know I can do. I wrote songs."
Church is holding a 19-show residency at the bar. He wants to use the venue to share unreleased songs that he considered previously too personal to record. He said, "What I'm trying to show with the residency here is that it was really the songwriting and the songs that nobody's heard. That I've never put on a record because it was too personal, it was too close. I'm gonna play those, and I'm going to say, 'This is what got me through.'"
.@ericchurch is one of country music’s most respected artists — but even now, he still sometimes sees himself as an outsider.
He told @JanCBS about building a safe space in downtown Nashville and how music helped him heal after the death of his brother. pic.twitter.com/AvSrd9kpjj
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) April 23, 2024
Eric Church Had a Few Bad Years
Church's spiral into darkness started in 2017. Doctors discovered a blood clot in his chest, and the singer had to undergo emergency surgery in order to save his life. The moment made him realize his own mortality and how fragile life is. Church said, "It was the first time in my life I had evaluated my own mortality, one, but then a lot of other people's mortality too."
Sadly, 2017 brought more death his way. Church had been performing at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas. The site became one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. A gunman killed 59 people and injured many others. Church said, "I watched people that night hold up boots and sing at the top of their lungs, and then two days later, it was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. I had a lot of fans that had stayed over for the weekend to see all the shows that got killed."
He continued, "Something about it just kind of broke me. I think it was the sense of what music has been for my life with the safe space part of it. I think shattering that shattered a part of me. That was and still is a tough thing." Barely a year later, Church's younger brother Brandon ended up passing away.
Brandon's death hit him hard, and he found himself spiraling. However, he turned to his music and used it as an outlet to deal with his grief.
