Go big or go home, at least according to Eric Church! The CMA Entertainer of the Year. just announced he will release three studio albums in April, which were all written and recorded while spending 28 days in the mountains of North Carolina. The entire collection is called Heart & Soul, with each of the three words the title of one of the albums.
“I’ve always been intrigued when a song is born in a writer room – there is a magic that happens there,” Church said when announcing the news. “I wanted to put that in the studio form. So, every day, we would write a song in the morning and we would record the song that night. Doing it that way allowed for the songwriters to get involved in the studio process and the musicians to be involved in the creative process. You felt a little bit like you were secretly doing something that was special, and you knew it… You started going, ‘Hmm, wait ’til the world finds out about this.’”
When Church set off to record new music, produced with Jay Joyce, he had no idea that he was working on such an ambitious project.
“The interesting thing about this process is that Jay kept asking me the last three or four days, ‘Are we done?’ and at that time I didn’t know what the project was,” Church recalled. “I kept saying ‘God, this is going to be really hard. There’s a lot here. Is this a double album? And if it’s a double album, how do we leave out these five or six songs?’ I am the hardest critic on making sure every song deserves to be on the record, and I beat this thing to death going ‘This can’t be that good.’ But, it was just a special, special time and a special, special project that I think will be among our best.”
The album, &, was made specifically for Church’s fan club, the Church Choir, and will be available exclusively to those fans, and only in vinyl. That record will be released on Tuesday, April 20. Heart will be available on Friday, April 16, while Soul will be available on Friday, April 23. Pre-orders will begin on Friday, January 29.
2021 is shaping up to be a big year for Church. The 43-year-old will perform the National Anthem for Super Bowl LV, sharing the duties with Jazmine Sullivan.
See a complete track list of Heart & Soul, with songwriters in parentheses, below.
Heart Track List
Heart On Fire (Eric Church)
Heart Of The Night (Eric Church, Jeremy Spillman, Jeff Hyde, Ryan Tyndell, Travis Hill)
Russian Roulette (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
People Break (Eric Church, Luke Laird)
Stick That In Your Country Song (Davis Naish, Jeffrey Steele)
Never Break Heart (Eric Church, Luke Dick)
Crazyland (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Michael Heeney)
Bunch Of Nothing (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde)
Love Shine Down (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeffrey Steele)
& Track List
Through My Ray-Bans (Eric Church, Luke Laird, Barry Dean)
Doing Life With Me (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeffrey Steele)
Do Side (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Kiss Her Goodbye (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Mad Man (Eric Church, Casey Beathard)
Lone Wolf (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde, Ryan Tyndell)
Soul Track List
Rock & Roll Found Me (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Driver Williams)
Look Good And You Know It (Eric Church, Jonathan Singleton, Travis Meadows)
Bright Side Girl (Eric Church, Jeff Hyde, Scotty Emerick, Clint Daniels)
Break It Kind Of Guy (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Luke Dick)
Hell Of A View (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)
Where I Wanna Be (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Jeremy Spillman, Ryan Tyndell)
Jenny (Eric Church)
Bad Mother Trucker (Eric Church, Casey Beathard, Luke Dick, Jeremy Spillman)
Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones (Casey Beathard)
Photo Credit: Reid Long / Courtesy of EB Media
