Life has a pretty funny way of grounding you. Call it a higher power, divine timing, some cosmic force from the universe orchestrating things, whatever. None of us truly know. But oftentimes, the ways we need to grow come when we need it most. For Eric Church, tragedy and hard times could've only bred grief and strife. It's easy to lash out on the world when we're at our lowest. However, he has an outlook on his darkest moments that he argues made him a better person. Consequently, his music became better for it.
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Recently, Church spoke with Willie Geist for the Today show's Sunday Sitdown. There, he promotes his upcoming album Evangeline vs. The Machine. Particularly, he highlights how the horrifying Las Vegas shooting in 2018 at Route 91 Harvest music festival, losing his brother, and his own health woes radically shifted his perspective.
Eric Church Candidly Speaks on How Tragedy Alters His Life and Music
"The relationship between the artist and the fans, in that moment in time, is sacred. And those bullets shattered that. Right after that, I had a health scare, I had a blood clot, and thought I was gonna die. And then my brother died. So all this happened within a matter of months," Church recalls.
"And I think up until that point, you can listen to music maybe, and you can see that I was brash, arrogant in a lot of ways, but it changes when you have those things happen to you. I think it made the music more humble, and maybe more observant," Church continues.
Nowadays, the country crooner's concerns lie with trying to better people's lives, through art or philanthropy. Notably, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in his home state of North Carolina is something he knew he had to aid. His home base still inspires him creatively, it's only right that Church tries to help the community itself get back on its feet.
"The mountains of North Carolina to me have been so important creatively, that's home to me," he says. "I want to keep the focus on people in North Carolina, people in the mountains there. It's gonna be years. Years and years and years."
