Eric Church is one of my favorite country singers in music. He has a down-to-Earth personality and is one of the nicest people in music. All of his songs tell a story that mostly everybody can relate to and feel.

Born in Granite Falls, North Carolina in 1977, he began playing the guitar at age 13. following his high school graduation he attended Appalachian State and earned a degree in marketing. After moving to Nashville to pursue a music career, he scored his first record deal and released his debut album, Sinners Like Me. His song “How ’bout You” off of that record peaked at number 14 on Hot Country Songs.

His second album, Carolina, was another big success with many hit songs such as “Love Your Love the Most”, “Hell on the Heart”, and “Smoke a Little Smoke”. These songs were all co-written by Eric Church with his own personal touch and style incorporated. He rarely will take a song that he has had no part in writing as it isn’t personal or sincere enough for him to play on his own. One of his biggest characteristics is that he is always trying to have the closest connections to his fans as possible.

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Church’s third album, and arguably my favorite, was Chief. Released in 2011, it sold over 145,000 copies in the first week and was number 1 on the Billboard 200. Off of this album he earned his first No. 1 single with the song “Drink in My Hand”. Following this album he began a tour with many country stars such as Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown Band, and Eli Young Band. He was honored as one of the CMT Artists of the Year.

in November of 2015 Church released a surprise album titled Mr. Misunderstood with no promotion or advertisement. He decided to secretly write and record new songs with his band and privately develop the album without telling the media, public, and even people in his staff. Keeping the album private was his highest priority, so he took extra steps to ensure it would be kept quiet. Once finished, he mailed the album to all of the members of his church choir members, which is his fan club. the following day the album was quietly put up for sale in iTunes. This exemplifies how Eric Church doesn’t want to lose the touch and connection that he has with his fans. By doing this album secretly and releasing it first to his biggest fans shows how much he cares for them and is thankful for all of their support.

Another amazing aspect of Church are his live shows. He frequently tours the country and averages close to 40 songs a show, playing for around 2 hours. Also, he doesn’t tour with opening acts to kill time, he simply goes on at his scheduled time and plays all night.

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I first got into listening to Eric Church through my dad, who is a very big fan. I had been a fan of country music but never truly got into what it stood for or any artist in particular. He showed me a couple Eric Church songs and explained some of the lyrics and meanings to me while we listened to them together. I instantly loved everything about the songs and had a new artist to fall into. I ran with what he had taught me and listened to more songs and albums . My favorite, “Mr. Misunderstood” tells the story of a boy who doesn’t fit in with the kids around him in school. He finds a passion in guitars and cars and spends his time playing guitar and learning about cars from his dad, much like I do. I personally connected with this song as I loved everything about what the kid in the song loved. It personally spoke to me and I connected to it so well, much like all of Church’s fans do.