They go way back.
Last night, Taylor Swift was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame during ceremony at Music City Center in Nashville alongside Lyle Lovett, Shawn Camp, Lee Thomas Miller, and Bruce Channel. She was inducted as part of the Contemporary Songwriter/Artist category, becoming the youngest inductee in the organization’s history at age 36. George Strait was also honored as a special guest to receive the organization’s prestigious Career Maker Award.
You might have heard the story that back in 2006, Eric Church had landed a dream gig opening up for Rascal Flatts on the Me and My Gang Tour. At the time, it was one of the biggest country tours in the world.
However, that dream didn’t last long, because Church’s time on the tour was cut short after he famously was kicked off after a show at Madison Square Garden for “playing too loud and too long.” Looking back on how everything played out, it worked out for all parties involved. It even birthed the story of how Eric Church ended up owning Taylor Swift’s first gold record of her career.
When Church was kicked off the tour, a young, up-and-coming country music artist named Taylor Swift stepped in to fill his opener role.
Eric explained how he found out he was being replaced during an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon:
“When I was no longer invited to be a part of it, it was at Madison Square Garden. If you’re gonna not be invited to be a part of something, that’s the place to not be invited to be a part of something.
The following day after I was invited to not be a part of the tour anymore, I got a call from Taylor Swift. I actually found out about it online, that I had been replaced by… I think she was 16, blonde hair, had a song called ‘Tim McGraw.’”
Of course, that song was from her self-titled album that released in 2006 and launched her prolific country/pop career.
Swift may have been young, but she still knew that the right thing to do would be to call Eric Church and make sure everything was okay between the two of them. Church made the joke on The Tonight Show that she was checking in to make sure there was no “bad blood” as she took his spot on the tour.
He also apparently told (and accurately predicted) that being a part of the Rascal Flatts tour would be huge for her career:
“She calls and she goes, ‘Hey, hope there’s no (hard feelings). I love what you do. I’m taking over on the tour.’ I said, ‘Listen Taylor, I’ve seen this crowd. This crowd is going to love you. I love what you do. This is really gonna be great for you. And you owe me your first gold record when this happens.’ It took like seven days.”
Yeah, that gold record came a lot sooner than later for Taylor Swift.
And funny enough, she stuck to her and Church’s agreement. Church said that maybe a month later, Taylor Swift gifted the Chief with her first ever gold record:
“We were at a festival on the same bill probably not even 30 days later. She walks up on the bus, and had the first gold record of her career. She inscribed it, ‘To Eric, thanks for playing too long and too loud on the tour. Sincerely, Taylor Swift.’”
And during her speech at the ceremony last night, according to The Tennessean, Taylor had to give Eric a shoutout, recalling her first years as a writer in town and going into the independent Jody Williams Music publishing company:
“One of the memories I revisit a lot on good days and bad, because it just makes me feel cozy, is that I used to write a lot in two favorite buildings. I had two favorite places that I loved to write the most. The first one being the Sony Fire Hall, because you could get Sony Fire Hall.
‘Cause you could, you know, you could hear the other writers through the walls and I just kind of liked to pretend that I was in the Brill Building. And then my most favorite was a place called Jody Williams Music, an independent publishing company that was located in the little craftsman house.”
She remembered a lovely lady named Katherine worked at the front, and her boyfriend, Eric Church, would sometimes be there visiting.
Taylor told the crowd that Eric and Katherine have been married for 20 years now and have a couple of children, two boys, and “things have gone great for them”:
“And, you know, let’s say the year is like 2005 in this memory. My mom would pick me up from Hendersonville High School, drive me downtown and drop me off and I’d scamper in the front of Jody Williams Music and I’d say hi to Katherine who worked at the front and sometimes her boyfriend Eric would be there visiting.
Things have gone great for them. They’ve got a couple kids, married like 20 years now. His full name is Eric Church, just for clarity.”
Eric and Catherine got married in 2008 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and have two boys, Boone and Tennessee, and it was cool to hear about their history and that they left such an impression on a young Taylor Swift who would remember that over 20 years later.
She went on to talk about writing with Liz Rose, and how much that influenced her writing throughout her career thus far:
“But then I’d run up the stairs and I would plop down on the couch in front of Liz Rose in this room that was painted red. I’d say, ‘Liz, this happened at school today. I’ve got a hook that I want to like, you know, we’ve got to write this thing.’
And she’d get her notebook and we’d just write so fast. And when we finished with the song, you know, I’d kind of jog out the back of this house to the backyard where there was a garden shed.”
She recalled meeting her producer for her first album, Nathan Chapman, who ultimately produced her first album… and the rest, as they say, is history:
“And in that garden shed was a one-person studio where Jody Williams Music’s favorite demo producer, Nathan Chapman, was making demos. And I would run in, and Nathan would play every single instrument on these demos, and he interpreted my music so intuitively that later on I would fight for him to produce my entire first album.
And it was our first album, both of us, and I am shocked and stunned to say that as of a couple days ago that album is 20 years old. You know, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve gotten to genre hop and travel the world and write with so many different people and in so many different ways, and the only reason that I’ve been able to have that kind of dexterity in my creative process is because of the fundamentals and the foundation that I learned here in Nashville.
And I never forget that for a single second when I tell every single person I know about what we have here.”
Taylor certainly made her mark on Nashville, there’s no doubt about that, and I think it’s certainly deserved for her to be in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
You can watch her full speech here: