Eric Church Only Knew How To Play 12 Songs At His First Gig, So He Had To Play The Same 12 Songs Twice

Gotta start somewhere.

Eric Church recently released his eighth studio album, Evangeline vs. The Machine, and it’s hard to believe that he’s already 20 years into his legendary country music career.

But before he became a superstar, he was playing BBQ restaurants in his home state of North Carolina.

Church recently joined The Steam Room with Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, and recalled the first gig he ever played in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. As it turns out, he wasn’t given the best performance slot that night:

“My first gig was at a place called Woodlands BBQ in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. And I got the coveted Monday night spot at 6 PM. Everybody wants that spot.”

He says he was only around 18 years old at the time, and he was just getting started as a performer – so he didn’t exactly have a full catalog of songs in his repertoire at that point:

“I knew 12 songs. I had learned 12 songs.

In my head, they told me, ‘You’re going to play a set and you’re going to take a break.’ In my head, everybody’s going to leave the bar and they’re going to change the bar over, and I’m going to do this from 6 to 10.”

But unfortunately for Church, nobody left after the first set:

“I got there at 6, and I played my 12 songs, and at the end of that I said, ‘I’m gonna take a break.’

Nobody left. So I came back out for my second set, I didn’t know anything but those 12 songs. I didn’t know whether we’d go backwards, that’s all I had.”

Well he decided to come clean with the crowd before playing the same 12 songs that they had already heard, but promised that if they came back to see him again, he would have some new songs under his belt:

“I was actually honest with them. I said, ‘Listen, tonight’s my first gig, if you guys will permit me to come back next week, anything you write on a napkin tonight I promise I’ll learn by the time I’m here next Monday night.”

Of course you know what happens when you start taking requests like that: You get the a–holes in the crowd (like me) who start trying to challenge the singer with the most off-the-wall requests they can think of. And as it turns out, Church got some of those too.

“Now, there were some interesting things. I had to think about how to play ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna, but that was a learning experience for me.”

And Church says it’s an experience that new artists aren’t getting with singing competitions and TikTok allowing them to skip that step of grinding their way up through bars and clubs:

“In the world we live in now, you have all these reality TV shows and TikTok. When I came up, you had to come up in the bars and clubs and you had to go through things like that. You had to watch people fight in the crowd and you had to earn it.

Now you can go on – nothing against it, I understand times change and I don’t want to be the old guy yelling at clouds, but there’s something to that when you really put in the work and you really earn it.

When the time comes that the moment is big, you feel like you belong there. And I think what happens a lot of times now is a lot of the younger artists skip that step. So I’m happy that I had that step.”

Right on. Makes you appreciate the success all that much more. And luckily, Church has quite a few more songs in his repertorie these days.

The post Eric Church Only Knew How To Play 12 Songs At His First Gig, So He Had To Play The Same 12 Songs Twice first appeared on Whiskey Riff.