By Adam Lucas

STUDIO 6B—Johnny grew up on Sunday night.

In the culmination of a whirlwind 72 hours that saw Eric Church perform three packed shows plus appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Church called a last-minute audible and elected to shelve his planned song in favor of “Johnny.”

It was the right move in front of a national audience that needed to be exposed to the moving song written in the wake of the Nashville school shooting in 2023. But when the decision was made on Thursday, just a couple days before the performance, it required a complete reimagination of the personnel and equipment needed to do the Tonight Show appearance.

“Johnny” is not a normal song. As Church discussed with Fallon, the origin came from dropping his kids off at school the next day after the shooting. He worked on the song with Brett Warren, and then worked with longtime collaborator Luke Laird to polish it.

The best way to get a true understanding of Church’s talent is to hear other musicians talk about him. “The most amazing thing about that song is we got together to record the demo,” Laird says. “We sat there and came up with all those choir parts and then he sang them all himself on the demo. The song was already so powerful. And hearing Eric sing those choir parts down was amazing.”

There simply aren’t many humans on earth who can create an intelligent, moving song like that, then take it all the way to bringing it to life. You already know he can rock. But the last few days have been another reminder that he’s also an artist.

For Fallon, though, Church needed more voices. And there was no time to waste; he needed 20 choir members on short notice in New York City. Choir leader April Rucker, a regular part of the backing vocalists on tour, went on the offensive, going through her extensive list of contacts to assemble an outstanding group. Some were already on the Free the Machine tour and performed in Brooklyn the night before. Some were flown in from Nashville. Some were singers she knew in New York.

While Rucker was wrangling singers, Church and manager John Peets began planning the show appearance. They didn’t just want Chief to sing the song. They wanted him to perform it in an impactful way.

Luckily, they already had a blueprint. At the friends and family opening of Chief’s in April of 2024, Church used a choir that made a surprise appearance to enhance the “Johnny” performance. He liked it so much that he stayed up until 4 a.m. rewriting the entire Chief’s show, making the choir a regular feature of that wildly successful residency. That laid the foundation for the memorable Stagecoach show, and eventually the current Free the Machine tour that spans every aspect of Church’s career.

But the consumers of the spine-tingling version of “Johnny” with a choir appearing out of the shadows were almost exclusively Church Choir members who managed to get tickets at Chief’s. The Tonight Show was a completely different scale, although—believe it when they tell you the studio looks much bigger on television than in real life—the room wasn’t much bigger.

Coming off three packed arena concerts in three days, Church and the choir reassembled at Studio 6B on Sunday morning—less than 12 hours after he left the stage in Brooklyn—to rehearse. “Johnny” has been a part of every show on the Free the Machine tour. But that’s a bigger performance. This one needed to feel more personal and intimate while simultaneously connecting with two million people on television.

Navigating 20 people through the studio audience to join Church on stage required exact planning. Peets and Church wanted to recapture that feeling from Chief’s when the depth and power of the voices took the audience by surprise.

Even in front of less than two dozen people in rehearsal, it worked. When the song clicks, by the time Church roars, “There’s FIRE on the mountain,” there should be chills. And that’s exactly what happened. As Fallon worked his way through the various dressing rooms before the show, he repeatedly told the choir and Church the rave reviews he’d been hearing from rehearsal.

The show version was even better. Television performances are scripted and blocked and methodically planned. But they still hinge on the artist’s ability to execute that plan with people in the seats. A weary Church had ripped a nail off his right hand during Saturday night’s show, an injury that was still bleeding throughout the day on Sunday. It didn’t matter.

We already knew the song would resonate with Church Choir members in Chief’s who were predisposed to love it. Sunday showed it could also connect with an audience that may have had only passing familiarity with Church. In doing so, the song received the wider audience it deserves in the presentation where it is most effective. It’s a song that is best when it’s small and intimate…with a very big and universal message.

That message was well received by a very impressed host. As Chief and the choir made their way back to the dressing rooms after the show, Fallon made it a point to greet as many of them as he could in a back hallway. “All of you,” he told them, “crushed that.”

Watch the full performance here