Eric Church

Eric Church is a rebel, both by design and circumstance, an old-fashioned outlaw in a time ruled by sweet country-pop and smiling bros singing about girls, trucks, and beer. Church loved all those things, along with a little smoke, but he was burlier, brawnier, sharper, and smarter than the pack, consciously evoking the ghosts of Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash but also playing with metallic guitars that previously had no place in hardcore country. Church likes to blur lines like that. He sang of "Springsteen" in a bittersweet ballad that sounded a little like the Boss, he sli...