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February 25, 2020

Outsiders Radio: Episode #60

AIR DATE: February 2020

SHOW THEME: Country 2 Country

 

Hey everybody, it’s Eric Church back for the sixtieth episode of “Outsiders Radio.”  We’re heading over to Europe in a couple weeks, so in this episode, we’ll spotlight the Country 2 Country festival, and some of the artists playing there this year. But first…here’s one from a few years back.

 

 

That song came up during an interview I did a week or so ago in Nashville.  We spoke at something called Country Radio Seminar, talking about “chasing creativity.” We’ve been “chasing creativity” ourselves during the past few weeks.  During this interview, we announced that we spent a month in the mountains of North Carolina…writing 28 songs in 28 days.  Not sure yet where it’s all going, but we’ve made a start.

 

For now, the new music’s on hold, and the next stop is Europe, playing a festival called Country 2 Country.  It’s a three day festival where we’ll play London on March 13, Glasgow on the 14th, and wrap up in Dublin on the 15th.  As usual, it’s a great line-up. Joining us on all three shows will be a great band known as The Cadillac Three.

 

        

 

We’re takin’ “the south” to Europe.  That’s The Cadillac Three, who’ll join us at the Country 2 Country festival in a couple of weeks.  The festival covers three days with a different headliner each day.  One of those headliners is Darius Rucker.

 

Darius: I love C2C, I got to play the first one, and then got to go back this year, and the crowds, every show was sold out, the crowds are huge, we’re playing country music in the middle of the UK, and I plan to go back because you realize there’s so much happening there with country music, and I wanna be a part of that.

 

 

 

 

That song was originally done by the Old Crow Medicine Show, and they’ll be joining Darius Rucker at the Country 2 Country festival in the UK this month.  ALSO on that show will be another great band: Old Dominion, who enjoyed being in the host cities.

 

(OD Europe) Glasgow’s cool, we drank some scotch there. That seems to be for whatever reason the city where we’ve found our groove in. We have places we go to. Dublin was beautiful. I went for a run in the morning, when I leave the bus to run, I open google maps and look for something green, and I ended up along the river, and it was beautiful, way more green than other parts of the UK we were in. It wasn’t even a nice time of year.

 

 

 

We’re spotlighting this year’s Country 2 Country festival in the UK.  I’m headlining one night, Darius Rucker & Old Dominion are doing another night, and the third night will be headlined by my buddy Luke Combs.  He had his first take of C2C a couple years ago.

 

Luke: I think the crowds in Europe, they listened to the songs more. It’s not always a big huge party. They’re there to take in the music, and appreciate it for what it is. That’s a little different from what it is in the states. They were processing it more, because we don’t come over there as much.  They want to enjoy it because they won’t see us next month if they don’t see us this month.  So it was awesome, I didn’t do that much sightseeing.  Big Ben was under construction when I was there. I did see a lot of the inside of vans, cars, and buses. But it was totally a different experience, I’d never traveled overseas, first time doing big long flights, and it was really cool.

 

 

 

One more thing about Luke Combs: Our duet “Does To Me” is getting a lot of airplay right now. 

        

Luke: It’s great, and Eric has been and still is a huge inspiration to me, and somebody I look up to as a songwriter, they way he cares about his fans, and the thought he puts into the show every night is something I try to emulate because I think it had such a big impact on me, and so many of my friends. It just feels like he cares about what’s going on musically and in the eyes of his fans, so for him to like this song enough to jump on it, and that was something I was concerned with, I was like don’t feel like you have to do it because I’m asking. I only want you to do it if you genuinely want to do it. So for him to say yes to that was great for me, and for me to be in the studio with him was definitely a great experience.

 

 

 

There may be a few opportunities for Luke & I to do that song, because we’re actually on a few shows together, including the “Rock The South” festival in May.  We’re both playing Country 2 Country, but on different nights.  Joining Luke on his night is Brett Young.

 

 

 

 

We’ve been spotlighting the Country 2 Country festival in this edition of Outsiders Radio.  As you can hear, they have a diverse group of artists performing on all three nights.  There’s also a country legend on the bill.  Tanya Tucker just picked up the first Grammy awards of her very long career.

 

Tanya: It's just been an amazing journey. I mean, almost 50 years in this business, and still a few firsts left. You know, you just never give up your dream.

 

        

Tanya Tucker is truly one of country music’s original “Outsiders.”  She’s on the road all year celebrating her Grammy-winning album “While I’m Livin.’”  She’ll be performing at the Country 2 Country Festival taking place in the UK, and I’m proud to be a part of that festival as well.

 

 

About a year ago, I performed at Willie Nelson’s 85th birthday show here in Nashville.  The Willie song I did that night was “Me & Paul.” The “Paul” in that song was Paul English, who was Willie’s best friend and longtime drummer. We’re sorry to report that a couple weeks ago, Paul English passed away. There are many ways to honor Paul English for his life in country music.  But perhaps the best way is to hear it from Willie Nelson.  We’ll see you next time on Outsiders Radio.