Eric Church Doesn’t Regret His Controversial Gospel Set At Stagecoach: “A Defining Moment Of My Career”

Lives are made for chances. Eric Church has taken plenty of chances throughout his nearly two-decade long career, from breaking the rules and getting kicked off the tour while opening for Rascal Flatts to going behind his label's back to send his surprise Mr. Misunderstood album to fans for free. And it's safe to say they've paid off for him. Church is one of the modern-day legends of the genre, a guy who's charted his own path his whole career knowing that the fans and the music were what was most important. So when it came time for Church to headline this year's Stagecoach Festival, he knew that he was taking a big chance with his performance - but he also knew that it was one that was worth taking. Of course I'm sure you remember by now the reaction when Church showed up for the festival and instead of playing a traditional set, decided to play an hour-and-a-half long acoustic gospel medley, complete with a full church (no pun intended) choir to back him up. It was the kind of out-of-the-box performance that not many artists could pull off - or would even have the balls to try. Fans of Church loved it as he showed off his artistry and mixed in everything from Snoop Dogg to "Oh Happy Day." But there were plenty of people who were not only confused, but outraged over the performance. Plenty of people didn't think that a headlining set at a festival was the type of place to try something like that, and fans began walking out mid-performance once they realized they weren't getting a traditional Eric Church show. And online, the reaction was swift. We covered it here , with some even calling the move "career suicide" from Church. But he didn't see it that way - and he still doesn't. During a PBS documentary about the performance, Church spoke about how he came up with the idea to try something totally unique and out of left field: "I was thinking about my journey. I started out 7, 8 years old, Baptist church in North Carolina. And I was honestly sitting on my couch one day and just started moving through hymns and then I started moving through soul stuff, started moving to covers, and I worked my way through my musical journey and I thought, 'Ok, that would be kind of interesting if we never stopped.' I don't view the Stagecoach set as songs. I view it as one piece of work. And you're really kinda going back in time musically. We're using voice and we're using my guitar, and we're going to go in front of 80,000 people, where everything before that has been as big of a bombast as you can get, and we're going to be the opposite of that. We're going to take it back to the genesis of music, where this all started. At a church piano, with a choir. You really get to look at musically what made me the artist I am. And it just started to germinate as an idea." And while it may have seemed simple - just Church and his guitar doing a medley of songs for an hour and a half - he says that he put more work into that show than any he's done: "It was the hardest thing I've ever done musically. I have more hours rehearsing on the Stagecoach show than any show of my life." During the show, the members of the choir said they noticed fans streaming out as the performance went on. But Church didn't care: "Kinda thought it would happen and kinda wanted it to happen in a way. Because I knew it would create the kind of response that I wanted to create, which was a challenging response. But I was mainly focused on the execution of the performance, because I knew that we needed to be great in order for this to live beyond the last note." Church's front of house engineer Ben Rigby admits that they were all refreshing their phones after the show to see the reactions to the performance. And the first one he saw, ironically, was our post with the headline:

"Career Suicide" – Eric Church Played An Hour & A Half Long Acoustic Medley With A Gospel Choir During Headlining Stagecoach Set & People Were NOT Happy

(Just to clarify: "Career suicide" was a quote from one of the reactions and not my words. In fact, I praised the performance in the article and praised Church for having the balls to go out and try something like that. But hey, the headlines are what really matters). Well Church was also asked how he felt about that headline, and he had a reaction that you may not expect: "Would it surprise you to say good?" As you would expect if you know anything about Church, he's not bothered by what people say about him online: "It still comes back to the performance. I was happy with the performance. I was proud of us for going into a situation like that and doing something different." And as for regrets about his decision to do something different? Well, I think you already know the answer to that: "The more the artist is engaged, the more they're challenged, the better show the fans are going to get. That's what makes a one-of-a-kind show. Otherwise I would have went out and played my show, got paid, flown back to Nashville... I think it's going to be a defining moment of my career." When asked whether he would do it all over again, Church didn't hesitate: Yes. And that's what makes him the GOAT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBfr_qrazqM