Rascal Flatts Recalls Firing Eric Church From Their 2006 Tour During An Appearance On Sirius XM – At Eric Church’s Nashville Bar, Chief’s

How the tables have turned…

By now everybody probably already knows the story of an up-and-coming Eric Church opening up for Rascal Flatts on their Me & My Gang tour back in 2006.

It seemed like an odd matchup from the very beginning, having this brash, rockin’ new guy who sings about teen pregnancy and smoking weed open for Gary LeVox in his bedazzled jeans singing slicked-back “mom country.” It was doomed to fail from the start – and it did.

According to Rascal Flatts, they asked Church several times to keep his set to the allotted time for the opener, and even let him go on earlier so he had more time to play. But Chief still wouldn’t follow the rules:

“We asked him four times to stay to the allotted amount of time that he had to play. We sat him down in our dressing room and were like, ‘Look, we’ll put you on early so you can play longer. But please, just be off the stage because we still have to do our show.’

And for every minute that you go over time, especially in New York City, you’re charged thousands of dollars by the minute in labor fees. So the last time was Madison Square Garden. We said, ‘It’s really important that you get off on time.’”

Spoiler alert: He didn’t. Church has admitted that he basically went into the Madison Square Garden show knowing that he was going to get fired, so he gave it all he got for what was likely to be his final show on the tour. And sure enough, he was kicked off what was at the time the biggest tour in the country, and replaced by another up-and-comer named Taylor Swift.

Church ended up launching his own Me & Myself tour, following Flatts around from city to city and playing his own shows in rock clubs – which they hated.

And the beef between the two acts heated up again a couple years ago, when Church recalled the story and Rascal Flatts lead singer Gary LeVox responded to his version of the events:

@garylevoxofficial

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