Eric Church on His Career: ‘I’ll Probably Do It Forever’

It has been 10 years since Eric Church released his debut album Sinners Like Me and a lot has changed in the singer's live show and even his thoughts on retirement. The WE Fest headliner recently talked about calling it quits, or not calling it quits.

"I would have told you around the Chief record that I was going to retire someday," he tells Radio.com. "That was the most successful, but weirdest, time I’ve ever had. It’s an odd thing for an artist to go through: when you’re a bar or club act, and you have your lane, and you have your crowd, and then all of the sudden, boom! You’re in arenas."

Church shares that the success was a "tough transition." He also adds that he felt pressure to play all the hits at each show night after night and not focus on his album cuts, something he had always done.

"It’s the songs in between the hits that makes the show special," he says. "Because I was a bit insecure with all of these people being at the shows all of the sudden, and not knowing exactly why, and not knowing how to entertain to that room. So that was an era that I didn’t love as much, ironically."

Church says that he got more comfortable with his next two albums, The Outsiders and Mr. Misunderstood, because it allowed him to take song requests and play whatever songs he wanted in the live setting. As a result, he enjoyed playing live much more than he did during his Chief years.

The singer adds that he gained more confidence by adapting his show to be more loose and less predictable.

"So, now I’ll tell you that I’ll probably do it forever. I enjoy it differently than I did four or five years ago, it was more of a grind then to do the same show every night, it irritated me."

Church will take the stage at WE Fest 2016 to headline Thursday night (Aug. 4).

6 Bada-- Eric Church Moments