Eric Church is a country music singer and songwriter who released his third studio album, Chief on July 26, 2011, debuting at #1 on both Top Country Albums and the Billboard 200. The Homeboy Songfacts explains that the album's title refers to a nickname of not only the singer's grandfather, but also Church's own pet name among friends and family. Eric grew up in Granite Falls, N.C., in an area known as one of the world's furniture capitals. He recalls being 4 years old, standing on a table at a local restaurant, singing "Elvira" to a waitress and a handful of patrons who would reward him with change. ...show more

Eric Church is a country music singer and songwriter who released his third studio album, Chief on July 26, 2011, debuting at #1 on both Top Country Albums and the Billboard 200. The Homeboy Songfacts explains that the album's title refers to a nickname of not only the singer's grandfather, but also Church's own pet name among friends and family. Eric grew up in Granite Falls, N.C., in an area known as one of the world's furniture capitals. He recalls being 4 years old, standing on a table at a local restaurant, singing "Elvira" to a waitress and a handful of patrons who would reward him with change.

He was 13 when he started writing songs, and he bought a cheap, hard-to-tune guitar and taught himself to play, influenced by his parents' eclectic tastes, which stretched from Motown to bluegrass. At a little bar in the mountains of North Carolina, he watched a band called the Harris Brothers getting big tips for playing songs that he knew, and by the summer of his junior year, he had a gig of his own. His first gig was with M. Snow at Woodland's Barbeque in Blowing Rock.

The wait staff eventually drove them off because of their ability to keep fans around for longer than desired hours. He quickly formed a band with Snow, his brother and another guitarist and was bestowed the name The Mountain Boys by several fans at one of their first gigs at a restaurant called Arizonas. The first night they knew just 14 songs, but they faked their way through a four-hour set and held onto enough of the crowd to help launch them as a regional act. In a year or so, Church was throwing original songs into the set mix and not long afterward was selling CDs of his own material. ...show less