Eric Church is putting his Heart on the line for his massive new three-part album, Heart & Soul. And with the first installment arriving this Friday (April 16), he’s opening up about the crazy story behind it again.
Church has spoken repeatedly about the ambitious album’s creation — which came together over a month of seclusion in a North Carolina cabin. The story goes that he and his team of collaborators challenged themselves to write and record an entire song every single day of the trip, an “experiment” in living in the musical moment. And although that experiment was definitely grueling, it was also a success. Church told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that by all accounts, this is his favorite recording to date.
“It was really an experiment,” Church says in the wide-ranging interview. “Going into it, I’ve always believed that the moment a song is born is the most important moment of that song’s life. And what normally happens, at least in Nashville, Tennessee, is a song is born, and we write the song, and we go home and we make a demo. And six months later, we figure out if we’re going to go into a studio and cut that song. But there’s so much time that the magic just starts to die away, die away, die away. And I wanted to try to make … Let’s write the song that day. Let’s record the song that day. And let’s commit everything we have to that moment, to that song, and let it be. I think that that’s what … This is my favorite project for that reason, because I’ve never really put it all out there like we’ve done on this one.”
Meanwhile, Church will celebrate Heart & Soul’s arrival with an exclusive performance and live Q&A on Tuesday (April 20), taking over the Amazon Music Twitch channel and Amazon Music mobile app at 6pm PT/8pm CT. That will be fans’ first post-release chance to see Eric Church perform tunes from the new album, including the debut performance of “Rock And Roll Found Me.”
Church’s Heart album comes out out this Friday (April 16). Soul arrives next Friday (April 23). And & will be available only to members of The Church Choir fan club, coming out on vinyl April 20. The reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year just announced a massive arena tour for this fall, unveiling the dates and cities of The Gather Again Tour.