Eric Church has always been good about challenging the typical conventions in country music. Nashville remains pretty traditional in how they peddle records out to their audiences. The industry is still trying to figure out how Morgan Wallen corralled such a devoted, relatively organic audience off of TikTok. Someone like Church sets the stage for that in 2015 when he released a surprise album titled Mr. Understood. As invigorating as that might be for fans of his, the label apparently didn't hold the same level of enthusiasm.
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Recently, Eric spoke with Jelly Roll at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. There, the pair gets into a variety of topics, cutting their teeth in the country music industry and everything that comes with it. One topic worth highlighting is when Church released Mr. Understood. Initially, it started out as a shock for diehard fans, receiving a physical CD in the mail with no warning. The only way he pulls this off is by going the extra mile to keep it top secret. "We kept this top secret. We went so far as to, we bought a record plant in Germany to make our vinyl records and CDs, so that the US, the normal distribution didn't know," Eric says.
Eric Church Upsets His Label With Surprise Album in 2015
Then, the CEO of Universal Music Group at the time Mike Dungan catches wind of these plans and grills Church about it. Eventually, he has to cough up his game plan and why he's going about it in this way. Ultimately, he's looking to go against the traditional route, for better or worse. "What always happens...is the record goes...we always give the record to radio, you give it to media, and then that opinion of that, and then it goes to the fans. And I always thought that was backwards," Eric says. "It should go to the fans, and then radio, and then critics."
Lastly, Church explains his last part of the puzzle, where he debuts a single and sends out his album to retailers as a 'Christmas album' of sorts. However, this is where it starts to sound a little haywire and Dungan reels him in.
"He goes, 'No name?' I said, 'Nah.' He goes, 'How does Best Buy and Walmart, retailers, know how to put your album out if you put 'Christmas album?' I was like, 'Oh, that's a good question. You ask hard questions, Mike,'" Eric jests. I said, 'Well we're gonna let 'em know that.' He was like, 'You do know that that's what we do? Capitol Records.'"
