Each week, I’m highlighting some of my favorite new songs!
Some are new singles, others are album cuts, but they’re all guaranteed to be stuck in your head all day long!
We’ve been in an Eric Church drought for far too long, my friends.Â
After he wrapped up his solo headlining Holdin’ My Own tour – and by the way,
he really DID hold his own, playing 35 or more songs for three and a half hours every night without an opening act for sixth months
– his management basically begged him to take some much needed time off.
Oh, but Eric’s a little rebel and even exhaustion and exasperated executives couldn’t keep this Outsider down.
The sunglassed singer has announced that a new album, Desperate Man, is on the way on October 5th and as a tease to his music hungry fans, Eric released the title track a few weeks ago on July 13th.
However, the more I heard it, the more I loved it and realized that it’s a perfect representation of an Eric Church song. It’s a rocking foray into Eric’s Southern roots in a way that is unapologetically unique and Eric to a T.
He’s never been one to shy away from playing around with his sound and embracing his rock and roll edge with influences ranging from Bob Seger to the The Boss who was the inspiration for his runaway hit Springsteen back in 2011.
(
Fun fact:
Bruce was actually a huge fan of the hit. He even sent Eric a handwritten note on a setlist detailing how much he loved his namesake song.)
In fact, in my opinion Eric is one of the few performers in his class of country stars to qualify as a Capital A Artist with how seriously he takes crafting, producing, and performing his music.
(ALSO SEE: Dierks Bentley & Miranda Lambert.)
He recently spoke with Rolling Stone about Garth’s lip syncing gaffe at this past year’s CMA Awards saying “
To me, lip-syncing is and always will be a red line. It’s fabricated. I don’t want young artists thinking it’s OK, because it’s not […] I didn’t like his excuse at all… If I can’t sing, I won’t sing, or I’ll sing badly. But at least you’ll get what you get.
â€
In that much buzzed about
article
, Eric also weighed in a his opinions on gun control, the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting (which still haunts him) and how he almost died from a blood clot in his chest, so I think it’s safe to say that he’s unafraid to lay his cards on the table and honestly, it’s a refreshing change.
He’s 100% himself. Whether you like it or not.
The video (and the song itself, really) reads almost like the beginning of a 70’s mobster movie with the opening lick feeling like it came straight out of the Nixon era, a jamming gospel choir, and a rollicking organ progression pushing it along. Think Goodfellas if they were pushing vinyl instead of mountains of cocaine.
Plus, we get to Eric see without his sunglasses!
That’s reason enough to watch, TBH.
