Eric Church Got His ‘No BS’ Attitude From His Dad

Eric Church is a country music superstar who earned his status in the genre on his own terms, talking no bull, and always calling things like he sees them. He's a lot like his dad. As we celebrate Father's Day this weekend, Church tells us about his dad.

In a recent interview, we asked Eric about his father, Ken. He thought for a minute and told us, "My dad is a… I'm trying to find the right words to describe him. My dad is a great guy, honest guy, very call it like he sees it, which is where I get a lot of that."

He continued of the man he got his name from (his middle name is Eric): "No BS. I'm gonna tell you how I feel whether you like it or not. I'm that guy; I'm me…My dad's that way, so I get a lot of that from him. There's also honesty and integrity that my dad carries himself with, which I've always admired."

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Before his Nashville bar opened earlier this year, Church was so devoted to his fans, dubbed The Church Choir, that he gave each one of them a deed and a physical brick from his revitalized six-story downtown Nashville establishment, Chiefs.

Eric said in a video message to fans, "You've helped me build my career brick by brick, and I want the whole world to know that the building is yours. This is not just another club downtown. This is our house. I've been involved in every step of restoring this historic building into a place we can call our own."

He added, "And because you've been with me every step of my career, I'm proud to dedicate a physical brick of the Chief's building to each and every one of you."

In addition to being given a deed to individual bricks that form the building, fans also received the first of an ongoing series of digital collectibles, including a digital version of their brick, which gives access to exclusive content. It includes fan club perks like never-before-heard demos, unreleased video footage, and priority entry at Chief's.

Other digital collectibles given to fans upon launch included 'Vinyl for Life' – which grants a fan a first edition vinyl of Church's entire catalog and a copy of every new piece of vinyl released going forward, including all color variants.

Country music often focuses on small-town people and their love of the land and fellow people in their hometowns. There have been many songs in the country over the years paying homage to the small town and hometowns, including Miranda Lambert's 2007 song "Famous In A Small Town." Eric Church scored a hit in 2014 with "Give Back My Hometown."

Miranda's 2007 song's lyrics include, "Whether you're late for church / Or you're stuck in jail / Hey, word's gonna get around / Everybody dies famous in a small town / Well, baby, who needs their faces in a magazine? / Me and you, we've been stars in this town since we were seventeen."

Carrie Underwood also sings of the charm of small towns in her 2012 chart-topper "Thank God For Hometowns," and it is hard to forget one of Montgomery Gentry's biggest hit over twenty years ago in 2002, "My Hometown."

The Cambridge Dictionary defines small towns as "small social groups where ordinary people live." The US Census Bureau determines a small town with a population between 25,000 and 50,000. It is slightly smaller than the average suburb, which is defined as a community within an urban area with between 30,000 and 70,000 residents.

What is fun in country music today is that many of today's big stadium headliners, like Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen, play for crowds bigger than the populations of the towns they were born in. As we pay tribute to hometowns, we look at five country superstars playing to audiences each night bigger than their hometowns.

As of 2021, Huntersville has a population of roughly 60,000. That is just a bit less than the crowd size Luke plays for each night on his stadium tour. Combs is now in New Zealand playing for big crowds overseas.

Morgan is playing for audiences each night on his stadium tour for crowds more than forty times the size of his hometown. In 2020, the population of Sneedville was just 1,315.

Lainey's hometown is tiny, with a population of just 211 reported in 2021. Wilson is now on her own headling arena tour playing for crowds of more than 10,000 people, and she just wrapped Luke Combs stadium tour as an opener playing for crowds over 60,000 each night.

Eric is from a very small town with just under 5,000 (4,927) as of 2021. Church is currently on his "Outsiders Revival Tour," playing outdoor arenas with more than twice his hometown's population at each stop.

Carrie often talks about her hometown being Checotah, Oklahoma, which has a population of 2,043 as of 2021, but she was actually born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, with a population of 36,790 (2021). Either way, opening for Guns N' Roses on their "World Tour" like she has last week (8/6) and a few more times this month, she is playing for packed rock crowds of over 60,000.