Eric Church on Grief, Grace, and Faith

Summary

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All There Is with Anderson Cooper

Episode: Eric Church on Grief, Grace, and Faith

Date: February 20, 2026
Guest: Eric Church, singer-songwriter

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Episode Overview

In this deeply personal episode, Anderson Cooper sits down with country music star Eric Church to explore themes of grief, loss, healing, faith, and the ways trauma shapes who we become. Church discusses his near-fatal health scare, surviving the ripple effects of the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting, the loss of his brother, and the constant process of coming to terms with tragedy. Their honest conversation traverses the loneliness of grief, the burden and grace of survival, and the hope for passing on more open, healthy approaches to loss—especially to their sons.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Universality and Loneliness of Grief

• [02:34] Anderson Cooper: "The thing about grief and loss to me is it feels so lonely, and yet is this bond that everybody has that we share with everybody else on the planet."
• Both Anderson and Eric reflect on how isolating grief feels despite it being a universal experience.
• Discussion is prompted by Heather Melton’s story, a previous interviewee whose husband Sonny was killed in the Las Vegas mass shooting.
  • [03:41] Heather Melton: "You have to start the second by second...You're never prepared for something like this."

The Aftermath of the Las Vegas Shooting

• [04:16] Eric Church: Describes feeling “broken” after the Route 91 shooting: "On stage was always this place that for all my life...I could go on stage…that was safe for me. ... After Vegas happened, those bullets shattered that safety and some broken me."
• Shares his proximity to the tragedy: performed at the festival two days before the attack, wondering "Why not me?"
• The trauma led Church to write the song Why Not Me just days after the shooting.
  • [10:53] Lyrics: "The Lord is my refuge, my fortress, my God with whom I trust / But I'll never know why the wicked gets to prey on the best of us."

Processing Trauma & Avoidance

• Both host and guest discuss their avoidance strategies:
  • [11:57] Eric Church: "I've always treated grief with—get as much space as you can between myself and the grief."
  • [13:16] Anderson Cooper: "I was so angry. I was so filled with rage. I used this rocket fuel...Work is the thing that I latched onto like a rocket. And it saved me until it doesn't."
• They acknowledge the cultural tendency (especially among men) to avoid talking about grief, which can lead to deeper loneliness and mental health struggles.
  • [15:40] Anderson Cooper: "I think buried grief is at the heart of so much of the loneliness that especially guys feel."

The Layered Loss: Eric’s Traumatic Year

• In one year: near-fatal blood clot, survived traumatic shooting, and lost his brother.
  • [14:57] Eric Church: "Within a year...I confronted my own mortality...then I had two kind of very traumatic events."
  • Played a show just four days after his brother's funeral, reflecting on the pressure to “keep going, keep playing.”
• Realizes, in retrospect, that not facing the pain made healing harder: "I'm not sure that was the right thing to do."

Grief in the Family – and What We Pass to Our Children

• Both Cooper and Church want to do better for their own sons, aiming to model vulnerability and honest communication about loss.
  • [18:11] Anderson Cooper: "I want to change. I want to get better because I don't want them to use the same techniques that I use."
• Eric regrets not bringing his young sons to his brother’s funeral, realizing now the benefit of communal grieving and exposure to loss.
  • [18:52] Eric Church: "Sometimes it's good for a child if they're in that age...to see everybody hurting...see what that death is, that it's a part of something."

Communal Grieving & Changing Norms

• The hosts reflect on historical and regional differences in grieving—communal wakes in the South versus today’s more “buttoned up” avoidance.
  • [20:40] Eric Church: "Times have changed a little bit...You're trying to protect your kids, but we're probably not."

Songwriting and Remembering

• Eric co-wrote “Without You Here” with his brother; the process and their music serve as connection and homage.
  • [22:14] Eric Church: "He wouldn't let me go. He said, 'No, you're not. Don't come here. I'll come to you.' ... That was an ultimate commitment."
• Feels his brother’s presence, particularly when performing certain songs.
  • [23:49] Eric Church: "There's not a night that goes by...at least there I feel him when I'm on stage."
• Regrets not showing more compassion during his brother’s struggles; wishes he had “more grace.”

The Challenge of Talking About Grief

• Both struggled for years to even speak about their brothers.
  • [31:13] Host: "But after his death, he didn't—not talk about would come up, but we didn't talk about it."
• Eric credits performing in his bar Chiefs with finally opening up, likening it to therapy.
  • [31:42] Eric Church: "I wrote a song about my brother called Church Boys...It was for me and those people in that room...And it actually helped a little bit."

New Traumas: Covenant School Shooting

• Anderson and Eric connect over the fear and powerlessness both felt after the 2023 Nashville Covenant School shooting, so near Eric’s own children.
  • [26:03] Eric Church: "Taking them to school that morning...I've never felt more helpless...I looked to my left, and I looked to my right, and there were parents down this entire line doing the same thing."

Loss, Faith, and the Changing Shape of Grief

• Eric’s faith sustains him—belief in a higher power as an anchor:
  • [34:17] Eric Church: "I'm a religious person. I have a lot of faith...I'm not sure...that I wouldn't have spun myself out of control [without it]."
• Recognizes that you eventually form a "new normal" after loss; the family unit is forever changed.
  • [16:43, 17:14] Vince Gill (via Eric Church): "[Your family is] never going to be the same...The quicker you understand that, the better you'll deal with it."
• Both reflect on how specific dates—deathdays and birthdays—carry special pain, but Eric now works to celebrate rather than dread his brother’s day.
  • [37:21] Eric Church: "Over the last few years...I could celebrate that day. He's got a daughter, and she's gotten older, and I could celebrate that day versus dread that day. And I think that's progress."

Remembering Life, Not Just Death

• Both Anderson and Eric discuss the importance of telling stories about the ones they’ve lost—without always focusing on the pain.
  • [39:36] Eric Church: "Death happened that one time, but the life happened all the time up until that."

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [04:16] Eric Church: "Those bullets shattered that safety and some broken me."
• [10:03] Eric Church: "Every show since then, I have had a moment in the show where I lock eyes or appreciate that we're taking for granted that we'll do this again....I've been way more tuned into that on every show."
• [12:09] Eric Church: "The grief process is what allows time to heal."
• [13:16] Anderson Cooper: "Work is the thing that I latched onto like a rocket. And it saved me until it doesn't."
• [18:52] Eric Church: "Sometimes it's good for a child...to see a life changing event, to see what that death is, that it's a part of something."
• [20:40] Eric Church: "Times have changed...you're trying to protect your kids, but we're probably not."
• [23:49] Eric Church: "I do still feel my brother...a song called Sinners Like Me...when I do that line...I feel him when I'm on stage."
• [26:03] Eric Church: "The hardest thing I've ever done is the day after the Covenant shooting...watching them walk in that school, I've never felt more helpless."
• [34:17] Eric Church: "I'm not saying between the lines, but I'm going to say between the buoys. And it's kept me somewhat moored to knowing and trusting my faith and my spirituality."
• [39:36] Eric Church: "Death happened that one time, but the life happened all the time up until that."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:34] Opening thoughts on loneliness of grief
• [04:16] Eric Church describes his reaction to the Las Vegas shooting
• [09:13] Replay of Grand Ole Opry remarks; process of emotional blackouts and on-stage grief
• [10:53] Performance and meaning of "Why Not Me"
• [14:47] Discussing a traumatic year (health scare, shooting, brother's death)
• [16:43] Vince Gill’s advice on life after loss
• [18:52] Regret over not including children in communal grieving
• [20:40] Cultural shifts in grieving—then vs. now
• [22:14] Eric’s brother’s support in Nashville and collaboration
• [23:49] The enduring presence of those lost, especially through music
• [26:03] Processing the Covenant School shooting as a parent
• [31:42] On talking about loss publicly for the first time
• [34:17] Role of faith in Eric’s navigation of grief
• [37:21] Transforming dread into celebration around important dates
• [39:36] Focusing on life, not just death, when remembering loved ones

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Tone & Style

The conversation is candid, direct, and emotionally raw. Both Cooper and Church share unvarnished memories and personal struggles, modeling vulnerability in the hope of encouraging others to be less alone in their grief. The tone is marked by empathy, humility, and a touch of wry humor, especially when reflecting on the cultural quirks around grieving in the American South.

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Takeaways

• Grief is universal but can feel incredibly isolating; talking about it, even messily, is vital.
• Avoiding pain may provide temporary relief but leads to greater suffering over time.
• Including children in communal expressions of grief can be healthy and healing.
• Faith, memory, and storytelling are powerful tools for processing loss.
• The day-to-day joys and small connections are more precious after loss; appreciating the moment is part of the healing process.
• It’s not about “getting over” grief, but learning to live alongside it—sometimes by celebrating those we’ve lost, not just mourning them.

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This episode offers a moving, resonant road map for grief—one that recognizes the complexities, regrets, and unexpected gifts of being broken open by loss.

Transcript

[Host]

Welcome to all there is. I took a couple days off with my kids at a beach this past week and while I was away it was reported that I've decided to leave CBS 60 Minutes where I've worked part time for the last nearly 20 years. I was caught by surprise that the story leaked out. I was at a water park with my kids and I quickly typed out a few lines about why I decided to leave. And what I said was that I've been able to balance both jobs for a long time, but now that I have little kids I just need to work less. I want to spend as much time with them as possible. I wrote while they still want to spend time with me and that is very true. David Letterman famously said that after leaving his long running talk show, if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first. Well, I did and my kids definitely liked the idea of me being around more. A friend of mine, actually a cameraman at 60 Minutes, recently told me that he remembers the moment when his 7 year old son stopped holding his hand. They were walking to school together and his son just slipped his hand out of his dad's. My friend didn't think anything of it in that moment, but soon realized that was the last time his son would ever reach out to hold his hand again. I haven't been able to get that story out of my mind. My kids still love holding my hand, or at least they still seem willing to let me hold theirs. That's not going to last forever and I've already missed out on too much. My guest today is also the dad of two boys. He's singer songwriter Eric Church. He's had an incredible career in music. He started writing songs when he was 13 and first played at the Grand Ole Opry in 2006. Eric is 48 now, with a long list of hits under his belt. His latest album, Evangeline vs. The Machine, is available now and you can see him live on tour this year. But Eric also knows loss. In June 2017, Eric had a nearly fatal blood clot in his chest and was rushed into surgery, which that September he headlined on the opening night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. Two days later, a gunman opened fire into the crowd and what became the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history. 60 people were killed there and more than 400 were wounded. The following June, Eric's 36 year old brother Brandon died. I sat down with Eric last week in New York and you'll hear from him right after this break. My guest today is Eric Church.

The thing about grief and loss to me is it feels so lonely, and yet is this bond that everybody has that we share with everybody else on the planet. And you and I share a bond, and I'm not even sure if you.

[Eric Church]

I do know this.

[Host]

You do know this. I did an interview with a woman, Heather Melton. Heather Melton, whose husband, Sonny, was murdered in Las Vegas. This was just in date immediately after the. The killings. Do you want to talk about that night at all?

[Heather Melton]

Yeah. I mean, it's horrifically vivid. We were having such a good time,

[Host]

and probably going to concerts was. Was your thing.

[Heather Melton]

Yeah, we love going to concerts. We did it every single month. We went to at least one concert.

[Host]

You're wearing his favorite concert.

[Heather Melton]

Eric Church was his. His guy. And we came to Vegas to see Eric Church, and actually, we have tickets to go tomorrow night to see him in Nashville.

[Eric Church]

Good.

[Heather Melton]

And we were having a great time.

[Eric Church]

How do you.

[Host]

How do you deal with this?

[Eric Church]

And I've talked to people in the

[Host]

past who say, you know, sometimes it's minute by minute, second by second.

[Heather Melton]

I mean, I think that's why you have to start the second by second, you know, I cannot imagine my life without him. I'm not really sure how you do that, because it's not something you learn in life. Like, you don't just learn to start tying your shoes and then, you know, or riding a bike. You're never prepared for something like this.

[Host]

Somebody sent you that interview.

It's.

[Eric Church]

I've not seen that since it happened. I had played Friday, and the shooting was on a Sunday, and that following Tuesday, I was playing the Grand Ole Opry. Somebody sent me that right after the shooting had happened. And it was such a. Something broke in me when that happened. On stage was always this place that for all my life that I could go and whatever was happening in my personal life or anything, I could go on stage. And I had that moment of communion with the fans, and the spirit moves, and we give it to each other back and forth, and that was safe for me. And it never occurred to me that there could be any way for that to not be safe. And after Vegas happened, those bullets shattered that safety and some broken me. And I got sent that right after it happened. And that interview was really the impetus for what happened on the Grand Ole Opry. I wrote a song called why Not Me? Because you go through this moment of, okay, I played Friday, and this happened Sunday. Why didn't it happen Friday? And you go through. It could have been me, right? And just to see the people on Friday night and to see how they were so full of life, they were into every song. And I even walked down off the stage and walked all the way out to my sound guy in the middle of the crowd, and I shook everybody's hand on the last song, and I walked down one side and I came back the other. I don't normally do that. And I did it that night because it was just. The spirit was so great. And then to see what would happen right after that, it just spun me.

[Host]

Is it something you still think about a lot?

[Eric Church]

All the time. All the time. We went through a period for a while where I had a fair amount of ptsd. I went through a couple years of that. It was always there, always in the back of your mind. And I still think about it.

[Host]

She and Sonny had tickets to see you at the Grand Ole Opry. You didn't want to play that show. You did. You went on stage and you talked about this, and if it's okay, is it right if I play what you said?

[Eric Church]

Yeah, sure. Okay.

I went down the right side and I. I shook everybody's hand, and I told him, thank you for coming. It's been a heck of a year. Been a hell of a year, actually. And I went all the way down the right side, waved at my sound guy, came back up the left side, smiling faces, hands in the air, pictures being taken. And I jumped back up on stage and I played Hold My Own. And Amanda was going to die young. And 48 hours later, those places that I stood was carnage. And those were my people. Those were my fans.

And.

I didn't want to be here tonight. I didn't want to play guitar. I didn't want to walk on this stage. But last night. Let me try to get this out. Last night, somebody sent me a video of a lady named Heather Melton, and she was talking to Anderson Cooper on cnn, and she had on our church choir tour, shir. And he said, what brought you to Vegas? And she goes, we went there to see Eric Church because he was Sonny's. Her husband who died. It was his guy, and we went there to see his guy. And then she said, we have tickets for the Grand Ole Opry tomorrow. And there's a. Over here, section three, row F. There.

[Heather Melton]

There's.

[Eric Church]

If you're there. If you're in row F, there's some empty seats, and that's their seat. And I'm gonna tell you something. The reason I'm here. The reason I'm here tonight is because of Heather Melton, her husband Sonny, who. And every person that was there, because I'm going to tell you something. I saw that crowd. I saw them with their hands in their air. I saw them. I saw them with boots in the air. And what I saw, that moment in time that was frozen. There's no amount of bullets that can take away. None.

[Host]

It's beautiful.

[Eric Church]

I don't remember it.

[Host]

You what?

[Eric Church]

I think I blacked out.

[Host]

You don't remember that?

[Eric Church]

I mean, I remember having the emotion. I remember when I walked off stage that night after it was over with. Yes. Sometimes things I don't. I remember it, but I don't. It's almost like I was watching that a little bit, in a way, you know, But I was just so overcome with emotion. I remember I usually played a lot of stages, but I remember I was side staged that night. My wife was with me, and I was just. I didn't know what I was going to say. I didn't know if I could say anything. I didn't know if I could play the song that I had written in the 48 hours since it happened. And I remember just pacing back and forth on the side of the Opry, you know, trying to figure out what I was going to say, and it just came out.

[Host]

Does that image that you talked about, is that still frozen in your mind?

[Eric Church]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

That joy.

[Eric Church]

Not that there's a good in anything like this, but I will say that I've appreciated since that moment when we get to the end of a show and I look at people, it really is a moment in time and you can take it for granted. And every show since then, I have had a moment in the show where I lock eyes or I appreciate that we're taking for granted that we'll do this again. And I had taken that for granted up into that moment. And at least for me, I've been way more tuned into that on every show. Every show I've played everyone, no matter where, since then.

[Host]

The song you wrote, and you wrote it. I mean, 24 hours, 48 hours. Why not me? I just want to play a little bit better. This is from the Grand Ole Oprah.

[Heather Melton]

Yeah.

[Eric Church]

The Lord is my refuge, my fortress, my God with whom I trust But I'll never know why the wicked gets to prey on the best of us

why you full of life and promise

at the top of your lungs so

[Host]

loud

[Eric Church]

My songs that you sang so sweetly Will ring in my ears forever now and when the morning sun hits

the mountain and a glorious steel calms the breeze.

I'll ask the God of infinite wisdom why you? Why not?

[Host]

Is it hard listening to that?

[Eric Church]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Host]

Do you feel grief in your life? Is grief something you are cognizant of feeling?

[Eric Church]

Yes. I think that I've always treated grief with. Get as much space as you can between myself and the grief to do whatever you can.

[Host]

Me too.

[Eric Church]

Right, right. So that's. I've always. Cause everybody talks about time heals, and that's true. But the grief process is what allows time to heal. I'm 48 now, so I find the last three or four years of my life that's become all that stuff that you bury, which I do great at. Kind of rub some dirt on it and keep rocking comes back. So. Yeah. And I had a period of time where a number of things happened to me that were traumatic or grief stuff. And at that time in my career, I just kept going. Another show, another whatever. Just keep rocking, keep going, keep working. And it's not what I would recommend to anybody.

[Host]

Well, I found. I mean, I'm 58, and I just woke up to realizing I've never grieved. And that's what. I'm doing this because I'm trying to figure out what it means and learn

[Eric Church]

how to do it.

[Host]

Because, I don't know, you literally went

[Eric Church]

to war zones to get.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Host]

And you talk about putting some dirt on it. I mean, I was putting layers and layers of dirt and thousands of miles between me and it. But you're right, it gets buried, but it doesn't go away.

[Eric Church]

Was that learned behavior or is that something.

[Host]

It's what I, as a little kid figured out. I was so angry. I was so filled with rage. I used this rocket fuel to propel myself forward. And I could outwork anybody. I could jump on a plane, abandon friendships, whatever. Work is the thing that I latched onto like a rocket. And it saved me until it doesn't.

[Eric Church]

I was gonna say. There's the thing. I would say the same thing. For me, you know, it's something that you just kind of. To me, it was always space. It's just get as much space as I can. Two weeks, one month, six weeks. You know, it's not healthy, but it's the way I've always dealt with it.

[Host]

Do you find that different now?

[Eric Church]

Yeah.

[Host]

Cause you've taken a break from recording, and I wondered how much of that is just like catching your breath.

[Eric Church]

I think some of it is family and kids, too. You just, you get older in life. I've got two boys. You just, you know, you understand that we all have trauma. Life is going to have trauma. And I was never very well prepared, in my opinion, to deal with that at the times it happened. Because the times that it happened, at least specifically with Vegas, it was a traumatic event. This is not a sick parent or something that I see coming. It's something I could prepare for. It was that. And I did a horrible job at that and other things, but just figuring out how to deal with it and my way to deal with it was just continue to keep your head down and play the next show, get on the bus. I mean, I lost my brother right after this.

[Host]

Yeah, In a year you had life threatening surgery, you had a blood clot that they discovered and boom, you had to go to surgery. Then a couple months later, there was the shooting in Vegas. And then your brother Brandon died June

[Eric Church]

2018, all within a year. So I had three different things. I confronted my own mortality, right. And then I had two kind of very traumatic events. So I went through a number of things within a year that I had not went through really in my life. And I just, I mean, I played a show after my brother died. We buried him and I played a show four days later because I had a show and I knew he'd want me to play the show. He would want me to do this, you know, that kind of thing. They would want me to keep going, keep plugging. It's all these things you go in your head and that's right. It's not wrong that they would. But I didn't spend any time dealing with it. So I just kept playing, kept going. But I look back on it now, it's just. I'm not sure that was the right thing to do.

[Host]

It's so interesting. There's this loneliness epidemic, especially among guys in this country. And there's a suicide problem. And I think buried grief is at the heart of so much of the loneliness that especially guys feel because we're not able to talk about this crazy bond that we all have, which is, I miss this person. And I found now in doing this, it's incredible to me how many people pass me notes on airplanes, like happened just on a flight the other day. Two people passed me notes like, my sister killed herself a couple years ago. And it's a beautiful connection. And I think it's awesome that you're even talking about this because I think there's probably a lot of people in your crowds who, who have that same feeling that you have and bury it just like you did. And I did and so many of us do.

[Eric Church]

Are you one of two kids?

[Host]

Yeah, I'm it. I'm the last one for my little family. That's for me been the hardest part. Being like the only one left who remembers all these memories is a weird feeling.

[Eric Church]

When my brother died, I didn't comprehend that it's never going to be the same again with my parents, with their relationship, with our, the whole family, the family dynamic. When my brother died, I wasn't prepared for that part. I had actually a call and I think it's okay that I say this to you, but I had a call right after from Vince Gill. And Vince Gill lost iconic country, lost his brother. And of all people, like two or three days after my brother died, Vince called me. And I didn't really know Vince very well. I'd met him and he actually was the first one that said to me, he said, you don't understand this now, but you're never going to be the same. Your mom and dad are never going to be the same. Your sister's never going to be the same. Y' all are never going to be the same as a unit. Nothing's ever going to be the same. And the quicker you understand that, the better you'll deal with it. And at the time, I didn't get it. I was sitting there thinking, well, it's grief. We've always been the family. But looking back on it, that's. He's exactly right. It never is the same when something like that happens, changes everything and it becomes a new normal. But at least with my brother, as people would try to talk about it, I have a ton of stories I could tell and a ton of things, but I wouldn't. I would just. I don't know, the pain maybe.

[Host]

You have two boys, teenagers. I have two boys, just turned four. Gonna turn six soon. I want to change. I want to get better because I don't want them to use the same techniques that I use. And I want them to understand loss and be able to talk about sadness and their feelings. And I already see it in my almost 6 year old, not talking about things. And so it's one of the reasons I'm trying to like, get better as fast as I can because I want them to be able to even to allow them to see me sad and to see me struggling with these things, have them in on the conversation.

[Eric Church]

We made a mistake. I looked back on it, I didn't know it Was a mistake at the time, but we made a mistake. My brother died. It was such a traumatic thing. And we decided my son, let's see, at the time would have been 6, 6, 7, and my other son would have been 4 or 5. And we decided not to take him to the funeral. We left him back with a relative and we went to the funeral. And I look back at that now. At the time, it sounded like the exact right thing to do because I was a wreck, I was a mess, my family was a mess. And I look back at it now and sometimes it's good for a child if they're in that age, 5, 6, 7, 8. To see everybody hurting, to see a life changing of it, to see what that death is, that it's a part of something. So that's one thing that I regret. If I could go back, I would go back. I would do that different.

[Host]

To see you in pain, but also to see you continue on, I think, is that it's not so cataclysmic that there is an after. And I talk about my dad and my mom and my kids ask me about their death. And we talk about it in ways I never did as a kid. I try to do it age appropriate and I see their curiosity about it and to normalize it. It's kind of lovely. But I'm gonna go to the cemetery to see my mom, brother and dad. And my little 6 year old wants to come. And it's not weird to him. And it's interesting. Cause I look back in history and grief used to be this communal experience. Your folks are from North Carolina, your ancestry's from there. My dad was from Mississippi during the Depression. As a little kid, he went to funerals like every weekend. His mom played the piano at wakes.

[Eric Church]

At wakes, they would spend days, you know. Yeah.

[Host]

And everybody would come. Even if you didn't really know the person, it was just the communal activity.

[Eric Church]

I think some of it is. Times have changed a little bit where that was such. That permeated so much of the culture where I think now you're trying to protect your kids, but we're probably not. That's the one thing I've thought about more than anything. And listen, I have gave myself a little grace on that. My wife and I have talked about it, but I just was not in any frame of mind to make that decision, to be honest.

[Host]

It's one of the things about country music though, that I love, which is the things you talk about and sing about. It can be an upbeat song, but it Is like sadness and it's real life. It's real life.

[Eric Church]

But that's what makes it great. Right?

[Host]

You wrote two songs with your brother without yout Hear.

[Eric Church]

Yeah.

[Host]

And they're both. They're like upbeat but also, you know, without yout Hear.

Actually, if we could.

Could we just play the one song?

[Eric Church]

I know where I come from. Get that kid.

[Host]

I know.

Who's that?

[Eric Church]

Who's that guy? Long time ago, man. I don't need baggy clothes or rings in my nose to be. I could pull up you on some Channel One stuff. You ain't pull it up. So watch. You in my high school.

[Host]

Oh, were you a Channel One kid?

[Eric Church]

Channel One kid. Our high school is Channel One. You used to do crazy stuff.

Yeah, that's true.

How about you? I ain't seen this video in 10 years.

[Host]

It moves.

I like it.

[Eric Church]

Yeah. We didn't have a good budget, so we shot her on video. Just passed the camera around. That's great. That's the way it did it back then.

[Host]

That's one of the songs you co wrote with your brother?

I was.

[Eric Church]

My brother was. I wouldn't be where I am today when I came to Nashville. Like any experience for a young artist in Nashville, songwriter, it's tough. You think you're really good. I would say this to any artist out there. You think you're really good till you get to Nashville and you see what really good looks like. And I went through a couple years of trying to make it and wasn't working. And I was about to come home one night and I was in a band with my brother, really close to my brother before I went to Nashville. And I called him and he was doing. He was back home. He had dropped out of school. And he said, what's going on? I said, man, it's not going to work. You know, I feel like life's passing me by. I feel like all my friends and everybody back there is moving on with their life. They're getting married, they're doing all this stuff. I'm out here treading water, right? And the next day he showed up in Nashville. We drove and I had a one bedroom apartment. He slept on my fold out couch for a year just to keep me there. And he just moved in and we found our own rhythm and our own life. But he wouldn't let me go. He said, no, you're not. Don't come here. I'll come to you. And he moved out and it kept me in town. And a year later, things started to kind of Happen. But I don't tell a lot of people that. But that wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him doing that, because that was an ultimate commitment. He dropped everything where he was and said, pack a bag, I'll sleep on your couch. And that's what he did.

[Host]

Do you still feel him?

[Eric Church]

I do.

[Host]

I don't feel my brother and I think it's because the nature of how he died and colors how he lived. But you do feel.

[Eric Church]

I do. It's interesting when it is, when it happens. I went through a period where we all go through my brother had probably your brother too, had troubles. And a regret I have is when he was going through some of those troubles. I did a little bit of the. This is what you. You're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing. And it was a little bit of the tough love, big brother thing. And I wish I'd had more grace and been more compassionate now. Now looking back at it, but at that time, you think, come on, get your shit together kind of thing and regret that now. But I do still feel my brother. I feel a lot with music. There's not a night that goes by that there's a song called Sinners Like Me. It was on my first album and it's a line in it at a headstone and going to see my grandfather. And now I throw my brother and my grandfather in that when I do that line. So at least there I feel him when I'm on stage.

[Host]

Did you know your grandfather?

[Eric Church]

I did.

[Host]

Wow. That's cool.

[Eric Church]

Yeah, I did.

[Host]

And you feel him?

[Eric Church]

I do. V was integral in my life. He's just a paternal figure when I was growing up. Taught me how to fish. Taught me. He was a chief of police in our hometown there. Just a bigger than life guy.

[Host]

My uncle was a sheriff in a small town in Mississippi.

[Eric Church]

There you go. We're at Mississippi.

[Host]

My dad's from a tiny town called Quitman, near Meridian.

[Eric Church]

I know Meridian. I've been through Meridian.

[Host]

Have you really?

[Eric Church]

Yeah. Okay. I played everywhere. Anderson, like you, I've been everywhere.

[Host]

I don't think there's a venue big enough for Meridian.

[Eric Church]

I think I probably played. Who knows what I did, but I played there.

[Host]

We're going to take a short break, more of my conversation with Eric Church in just a moment. Welcome back to my conversation with Eric Church.

There's another kind of connection that we have which you don't know about, which is the Covenant School shooting, which happened in 2023. I recently was down in Nashville. And I interviewed Chad and Jada Scruggs, whose daughter Hallie was one of the kids killed in that school shooting. And I know your kids go to a school not far from there and a mile and a half. And I know that was a huge, massive. Yeah, what about that?

[Eric Church]

Well, first of all, there's a couple things you expect in life. You expect to drop your kids off at school and be able to pick them up from school. Like, that's kind of a given in this country, at least for me, way I grew up. And I think the hardest thing I've ever done is the day after the Covenant shooting, the people in Nashville decided that it was best for the kids to resume life and go back to school. Taking them to school that morning, and I'd taken them to school a thousand times, and watching them walk in that school, I've never felt more helpless. I've never had more anxiety and fear about that and what that was. And I remember I didn't know what to do. And I pulled over in the parking lot. I kind of felt like I needed to be there. You feel like you leave. I'm going to sit here all day if I have to. You know, kind of. You're guarding the sheep, right? And I pulled in the parking lot. I was lost in my own thoughts and really just going through all this. And I looked to my left, and I looked to my right, and there were parents down this entire line doing the same thing. They were doing the same thing I

[Host]

was doing, just sitting in the parking

[Eric Church]

lot, just sitting there. Because nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew how to encounter the loss and the tragedy of what that was. And thinking about sending your kid to school and then being killed by a shooter at school, and it was incredibly helpless. That's the best word I have. It was helpless. And to this day, that's the hardest thing I've ever done. I've never had something like that, emotionally.

[Host]

Chad is actually the pastor at the school.

And I just want to play you. I just want you to meet them a little bit. I want you to. I just want to play a little bit. What I talked to them about. What has grief been like for you?

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

Felt like everything collapsed, everything internally. Pain that.

[Eric Church]

I mean,

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

gosh, it's just hard to endure. And then, you know, you have to relearn how to do everything, like how

[Host]

to eat,

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

how to sleep, and you just have a new relationship with pain and sadness and anger. There's been joy, too, but the sadness

[Eric Church]

was.

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

Has been. Was just. I mean, Overwhelming. I went into her room to lay on her bed. The smell, I knew that would go, and I wanted.

[Host]

You knew that. You knew the smell would dissipate?

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And her blankie was there and everything was there.

[Host]

And you could smell her that night?

[Chad or Jada Scruggs]

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that was true probably for a week or two after. So you're trying to get her back. That's not possible. But you don't believe that. And so anything that. That draws that possibility closer, I wanted to be there for that. So, yeah, I went in, just laid on her bed and cried by myself.

[Host]

They're really amazing people. Yeah. Has it gotten easier for you, your brother's death? Does carrying it get easier,

[Eric Church]

or do

[Host]

you feel like you haven't. Still haven't, really.

[Eric Church]

I think the more you bury stuff like that, which I'm prone to do, which we've talked about, the more it comes back in the most unexpected places. Right. Where you won't expect grief. My brother or whatever, even the covenant thing was a pretty traumatic because I related that to Vegas. So for me, it was this perfect world, this bubble, right? And taking my kids to school in Nashville, Tennessee, to a private school is a bubble. So it's seeing how it's not a bubble. And I think the vulnerability of that, it's interesting where the more I've pushed that down, even though my brother died in 2018, so it's been eight years, and those things will come out of nowhere. And I think that's probably just not dealing with it the right way. Or maybe that's what we all deal with, right? I don't know.

[Host]

How do you see it coming? Like, bubbling. Where do you see it?

[Eric Church]

Oh, just out of nowhere. Just with emotion or with whatever. Just when you don't even see. I guess I don't even know how to describe it. I just don't see it coming. That train's not coming, and then there it is, right? And actually it's probably manifested more the last two or three years. I've had a lot of moments like that. And you would think after five, six, seven years that wouldn't happen, they would be less frequent, but I found that they've been more frequent the last few years. So I don't know how to. I don't know. I mean, a counselor would tell you I probably should do some of that, but it's been unexpected where some of that stuff's come from.

[Host]

When I heard you have this bar where you play people put away their phones and you sing songs which are More personal than maybe you put on an album.

[Eric Church]

Most of that stuff I've never put on the album. That was one of the first times it manifested. So this is a couple years ago. And I would talk because I didn't talk about my brother. I didn't talk about my brother with my family. It was like this thing.

[Host]

But after his death, he didn't. I mean, it's not what you did

[Eric Church]

not talk about would come up, but we didn't talk about it. And my family's not great at that anyway.

[Host]

Do your mom or dad.

[Eric Church]

Not really. I mean, my mom's gotten better at it, my dad's gotten better at it. He struggled with that for a while, pretty bad. But I've gotten better. What happened to me when I did the. Honestly, it's like therapy at Chiefs.

[Host]

Chiefs is the bar.

[Eric Church]

Right, the bar, right. I would sit there and I would play songs. I wrote a song about my brother called Church Boys and never been on the road Never been recorded, never will be. It was for me and those people in that room that came. And I would talk about that, and I would talk about almost dying, and I talked about Vegas. And I went through some things just in front of 500 strangers, but I'm the only one up there. They're not talking. I'm the only one talking. And I found myself just more and more just talking about it. And it actually helped a little bit. I've gotten better with talking about my brother more, telling stories about my brother more. I mean, that was six years after he died, before I could start doing that. I think some things like that, they either bubble or they burst, and somewhere in between is probably where I was.

[Host]

I totally get that, though. For me, it's very hard to talk about my brother. Even now. Like, my voice starts to get funky on me, which I can't even control, which is weird.

[Eric Church]

How long has that been?

[Host]

I mean, I was 21 years old. He was 23. So I'm 58. So I don't know. I flunked math, but long time. And I can't tell how much of it is just, like the violence of his death and the fact that it was a suicide. And you talk about there were some things maybe you wish you'd done differently with your brother. When I realized my brother was going through some things, which was very quickly before he died, it all happened very fast, in a matter of a month or a couple months. I could not deal with it. Like the idea that there was something going on with him that did not Fit into my plan of like me surviving and me propelling myself forward.

[Eric Church]

And you were also young?

[Host]

I was a kid, yeah.

And I couldn't figure out how to, you know, we had both been raised in the same way or we both developed in the same way and we both couldn't talk to each other.

[Eric Church]

How'd your mom deal with it?

[Host]

He killed himself in front of her. He jumped off the balcony. You know, my mom had been through a lot as a little kid and she had this inner core that she would say that was like this rock hard diamond that she felt that she developed as a little kid to get through her childhood that nothing could ever break. She had that idea in her mind. And so she mourned and grieved and cried and wailed and for a long time. And she was never the same. But I knew she could survive. I knew she would survive. It never went away. It's impossible for something like that to go away.

[Eric Church]

It's impossible. You have kids now. It's impossible.

[Host]

It's unimaginable to me.

[Eric Church]

Unimaginable.

[Host]

Is there anything else about loss or about grief that you think about?

[Eric Church]

Yes. I'm a religious person. I have a lot of faith and that as far as grief goes with my beliefs and what I believe that has sustained me and steeled me at times, that I'm not 100% sure with what I do for a living and how I do it, that I wouldn't have spun myself out of control. And that has been at least an anchor for me that has kept me, I'm not saying between the lines, but I'm going to say between the buoys. And it's kept me somewhat moored to knowing and trusting my faith and my spirituality.

[Host]

Is it the idea that you will see your brother again?

[Eric Church]

That's one. That's one thing. But it's also the idea that you trust that a higher power is in charge. And nobody wants to go through this, but you understand, at least for me, that this was how it was supposed to happen. And it's unfortunate. And you use faith to deal with the next steps of that.

[Host]

It's a great thing to have.

[Eric Church]

I can just speak from my own experience and that's one thing I've learned about grief. Everybody always tell you however you react is the way you're supposed to react. And I always thought that was funny when I first heard it. Right. But I think that's right because there were times that I didn't know how to respond on things. Sometimes you almost. It's like you laugh, like. And you don't know you shouldn't be laughing. Right. It's stupid. But you almost. Your body, it's the emotion of it. However you react is the way you're supposed to react. And I think that that's just grief. Grief is just a. It is just a different kind of thing, you know, it's nuts. It's nut.

[Host]

I know a lot smarter people have said it more eloquently, but it's the weirdest thing. It's crazy to me that you can go your entire life running from it, just ignore it, trying to ignore it and stuff, but. And it's just there waiting.

[Eric Church]

I worry in society now, we try to be so buttoned up and we try to pretend we're this and we're. As you go back to the. In the south where we had wakes up and I mean, funerals were as big as weddings. It was like three days. And even back in. Where in Mississippi you were, they. They would sit up with the body.

[Host]

He was awake in your home. You know, there was no hiding it. The kids were around the coffee.

[Eric Church]

The kids were playing around the coffee.

[Host]

There was a guy in my Dad's town named Mr. Raspberry who would show up, apparently, and would always like.

[Eric Church]

His name was Mr. Raspberry.

[Host]

Mr. Raspberry. And he would wail and cry. And my dad as a kid turned to his aunt and was like, why does Mr. Raspberry cry so much? And she's like, well, if you ask me, his.

His bladder's just too close to his eye. It is great.

[Eric Church]

It is great. But I guess if you look at historically, we treated death different and grieving different than I think we treat it in this world where everything's supposed to be buttoned up. You're worried. We don't want to expose them to that. We don't want to do this. We won't want to appear that we're.

Whatever.

And I think that's not the way to deal with it. I went through a thing probably a couple years ago where with my brother, I used to dread the day he died. Every year on the calendar, it became this thing.

[Host]

What's the date?

[Eric Church]

June 29th. I would dread it and also I would dread his birthday, which is August 17th. So those two days were the thing I didn't just want to. They add two days to the calendar that I didn't want to deal with. But I think over the last few years, three years maybe, I've started to where I could celebrate that day. He's got a daughter and she's gotten older, and I could celebrate that day versus dread that day. And I think that's progress.

[Host]

That's huge.

[Eric Church]

That's progress. It's not the thing that I want to go from the end of June to July 4th weekend really quickly.

[Host]

Everybody has those dates on the calendar. My dad's Death day was January 5th. My brother's birthday is January 27th. So there you go. Yeah, the dreaded holidays, my mom started calling them.

[Eric Church]

I mean, that's key. I've had a. And you're going to get to this too, probably. But this past year, we go to the mountains of North Carolina for Christmas, and I usually take my two boys and we'll go shop for my wife and we'll go ride around and we have a day. And this past year, for the first time, as we were driving back to the house and my son surprised me with it and he goes, hey, I want to know more. Tell me about Uncle. They called him Uncle Baby. And he said, tell me more about Uncle B. And it floored me, right? And I realized I probably hadn't talked about it a lot. But you know what? For the next 30 minutes as I was driving, I told him stories that I probably shouldn't have told them. I don't think their mom would have been happy with it. No, we talked about it. And it's different, too. When your kids get older and they're going to want to know some of these things and you can talk about

[Host]

some of this stuff I've had that happened to my son will ask a question about my brother. And even thinking about it, like, sort of my eyes will burn a little bit and my voice will quiver like it is right now. But then I start telling him a story. And I'm able to do it in a way that doesn't infuse it with anything other than this is the story and it's a funny story or whatever. And it's nice to be able to have that moment where you can tell the story that's free of the pain of it and just. And for him, it's just. There is no pain associated with it. It's just a story about this person he doesn't know. And it's kind of. It's lovely.

[Eric Church]

I think, a lot of times, back to the death thing, I had another person tell me very wise, he'd lost a lot of people. And he said that death happened that one time, but the life happened all the time up until that. And I think sometimes we get caught up in what happened, how it happened, when it happened, but we forget about all the stuff that happened up until that moment. So that's been something that I've learned, I guess.

[Host]

Thank you so much for doing this.

[Eric Church]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Host]

Eric's latest album, Evangeline vs. The Machine, is available now and you can see him live on his free the Machine tour this year. Next week on Thursday, February 26th. Join me at 9:15pm Eastern for my live streaming show, All There Is Live. Just go to cnen.com alltheris and you can watch it there. If you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day for a week on the site. If there's something you've learned in your grief that you think would be helpful for others, feel free to leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. You can also send us a video message and email it to [e-mail] or send it to us on Instagram allthereis. Thanks so much for listening. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.

[Narrator]

Do you ever find yourself lying in bed with your thoughts racing and your brain just won't turn off? That's the kind of thing that Catherine Nicolay helps with on her podcast, Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a cozy, calming bedtime story with nothing stressful, nothing dramatic, and nothing you need to keep track of. It's just soft narration, gentle repetition, and soothing sensory details specifically designed to help you drift off. People around the world use Nothing Much Happens to quiet their minds, rest their nervous systems, and finally get the sleep that they need. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts episodes every Monday and Thursday.