28 songs in 28 days: How Eric Church’s isolation in the NC mountains birthed new music
For his seventh studio album, country music star Eric Church decided to try something much different, taking him back home.
The North Carolina native went into the mountains of Banner Elk, where he said Thursday he recorded 28 songs in 28 days in an old restaurant converted into a studio, according to media reports.
Church recorded his previous albums in East Nashville’s Joy Joyce’s Neon Cross studio, according to Rolling Stone, but he said during the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville he “felt like it was time to do something nuts.”
“We removed all the barriers about what people think of the song,” Church said Thursday of recording his new album, according to The Tennessean. “Just let it be the most creative thing for that one day, chase that as hard as you can (and) move on. Go on to the next one.”
Banner Elk is in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains near Pisgah National Forest.
Some of the days during his recording binge, he didn’t even sleep, Church said, according to Taste of Country.
All 28 songs likely will not make the album, Taste of Country said. The untitled album will be the follow-up to 2018’s “Desperate Man,” which was his third album to top the Top Country Albums chart by Billboard.
Church told the room of radio executives Thursday he brought a crew of writers and recording equipment to his isolated makeshift studio, Rolling Stone reported.
“It was kind of like ‘The Shining,’” Church said, Rolling Stone reported. “Looking back at what came out of it, everyone needed to be uncomfortable. The writers had no clue what they were in for. All that is what made it great.”
He closed the panel by debuting the acoustic version of his new song, “Jenny.” The “folky, ‘70s-rock sounding country song” is a love song Church got the inspiration for through a broken generator people kept talking about, according to Taste of Country.
Church, originally from Granite Falls, has won three Country Music Association awards and six Academy of Country of Music awards in his career that rose with his 2006 album, “Sinners Like Me.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 2:58 PM with the headline "28 songs in 28 days: How Eric Church’s isolation in the NC mountains birthed new music."