If not for Trombone Shorty, there might not be a new album by Eric Church. Church just released Evangeline vs. The Machine, an eight-track project that was largely inspired by New Orleans musician Trombone Shorty, and was three years in the making
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"Trombone Shorty came and played a show with me in New Orleans on the Gather Again Tour," Church tells the Los Angeles Times, recalling his 2022 tour. "We ended up in the dressing room after and got in this incredible conversation about brass instruments and string instruments and the history of music. Later, he invited me to come play this show he does during Jazz Fest. There were probably two white people onstage that night: me and Steve Miller.
Together they did both Church's "Cold One," and a cover of the Beatles' "Come Together." But it was doing Church's own song, but hearing it in a new way, which ultimately inspired Evangeline vs. The Machine.
"I've done 'Cold One' a thousand times, but I had never done 'Cold One' like that," Church recalls. "It was a Black New Orleans band with horns and background singers and a violin player — not Juilliard violin but like a janky New Orleans violin. The dude had the damn thing on his shoulder, not under his chin. Everything was wrong for what that song is.
" I'm not convinced anyone even knew the song," he adds with a laugh. "But we found our spot in the middle of it, and it was killer. I flew home thinking: I want to do a record this way."
Eric Church's "Darkest Hour"
Also included on the new project is "Darkest Hour." It's a song Church released in honor of the North Carolina residents after the deadly Hurricane Helene. All of the profits go toward rebuilding and recovery efforts. The song also shows off Church's falsetto, in a beautiful and jarring way.
"The song actually started three or four keys lower," Church explains. "But I was listening to Jim Ford and Sly & the Family Stone — honestly, I was thinking about Andy Gibb — and I just kept moving it up. I was incredibly insecure the first time in the studio, but I think that insecurity is what led to the authenticity of the emotion."
Church just announced his Free the Machine Tour, kicking off on September 12.
