Eric Church Finds His Escape in Vinyl Records

Just like his single, “Record Year,” is about, Eric Church uses the vintage love of vinyl to forget about his worries from time to time. In a world where everything seems to be automatic and it’s hard to get away from the quick-paced lifestyle, Church seeks out vinyl to help him stay leveled.

“For me, with vinyl, it’s escapism,” he explained recently. “I mean, we make music so rushed now. It’s so frenetic. I never view music that way. I’ve always viewed it as a way to escape from what’s going on. When it’s 99-cents download now, [laughs] all these things that go one with how we consume it, it’s just weird to me.”

Instead of falling into the idea that every music player makes the record sound the same, Church relies on the fact that putting needle to a vinyl sounds sweeter than any other form.

“For me, when you put a needle in vinyl, you’re committed. You’re in. You’re in until that’s done, and then you can either flip the record or try something else, but you’re in. And I think that that escapism, that getting away from the world, is something that I think society is longing for. I also think from a quality standpoint, there are a lot of people out there that forgot how good vinyl, or the way that it was recorded, sounds. We’re so much in earbuds and iPhones and all these ways we listen, we forget that music was more than just a backbeat or more than just 120 bpms; it’s emotional, dynamic. I think that vinyl is the best interpretation that we have,” said Church.

Church expresses his love for an authentic set of records in his recent No. 1 hit, “Record Year,” off his album, Mr. Misunderstood. This single marks the seventh No. 1 song on the Billboard and Mediabase charts for Church in his career. The exciting news also sets him up for his performance at the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater on August 9.