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Eric Church: Proud Of Patriotic Country Music

Eric Church is very proud of being part of country music, and what it represents, and as we gear up for Veterans Day on Monday (11/11), he told us why…

Eric Church plays guitar on stage in a black ball cap and a green shirt with a flag behind him.
Christopher Polk/Getty Iagews

Eric Church is very proud of being part of country music, and what it represents, and as we gear up for Veterans Day on Monday (11/11), he told us why country music is his format of choice and why he has such respect for the military.

Eric told us in a recent interview, "What I respect and admire is the sacrifice that those guys and girls go through for us to live the way they want to live too. I just think that I’m proud for our format. I’m proud for the music, that’s something we stand by when not sure other ones do as much. I mean, not that they’re not patriotic, I just think that’s really something that we make a focal point."

He added, "I’m proud to be involved in that. And again, I’m very thankful for the sacrifice that those… those guys endure, and it’s something that’s always been very important to me and always will be."

Church is a straight-ahead guy. He says that he is a lot like his dad.

In a recent interview, we asked Eric about his father, Ken. He thought for a minute and told us, "My dad is a… I'm trying to find the right words to describe him. My dad is a great guy, honest guy, very call it like he sees it, which is where I get a lot of that."

He continued: "No BS. I'm gonna tell you how I feel whether you like it or not. I'm that guy; I'm me…My dad's that way, so I get a lot of that from him. There's also honesty and integrity that my dad carries himself with, which I've always admired."

Before his Nashville bar opened earlier this year, Church was so devoted to his fans, dubbed The Church Choir, that he gave each one of them a deed and a physical brick from his revitalized six-story downtown Nashville establishment, Chiefs.

Eric said in a video message to fans, "You've helped me build my career brick by brick, and I want the whole world to know that the building is yours. This is not just another club downtown. This is our house. I've been involved in every step of restoring this historic building into a place we can call our own."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.