Sometimes we all need a second chance.
That was the position that Eric Church found himself in early in his career, back when he got kicked off the Me & My Gang tour with Rascal Flatts back in 2006.
The story’s well known by now: Church had already been warned about playing too long and too loud, but during a show at Madison Square Garden, he decided he had enough of the rules. So he broke them again, and promptly found himself off the tour, replaced by a new artist named Taylor Swift.
Church then decided to organize his own “Me and Myself” tour, following Rascal Flatts around from city to city and playing local rock clubs on the same nights as the tour stops he was supposed to be on. But after finding himself with the reputation for not following the rules, he had a hard time getting on another major country tour.
Until Toby Keith called him.
Believe it or not, up through 2010, Church was still headlining shows at bars like Joe’s On Weed in Chicago and Cain’s Ballroom in Oklahoma. Legendary music venues, no doubt, but far from the arenas that the superstar is packing today.
But in 2011, Church got the call from Toby to join his Locked and Loaded tour, an opportunity that Church credits for the career that he has today.
Speaking last night at the Toby Keith: American Icon tribute concert in Nashville, Church recalled getting the call from Toby at a time when few in country music were willing to give him a chance:
“About 15 years ago, I was starting my career, and we were having a hard time getting anybody in country music to let us come play shows with ’em. And Toby Keith was the guy that called and said ‘Hey, why don’t you come play shows with me?’
And there is no way I’m standing here today if it wasn’t for Toby Keith.”
Of course Toby and Eric knew each other long before then, having met in a hilarious way at a bar in Nashville when Eric was first getting his start.
“My first time I met Toby, we both frequented a bar in Printer’s Alley in Nashville called The Fiddle and Steel Guitar Bar. And I remember walking in my first time and apparently some of the patrons had been harassing a bartender behind the bar and as I walked in, Toby had taken the guy harassing the patrons and had drug him by his shirt collar all the way down the bar.
And as I walked in the door, the guy dropped in front of me, and I look up and there’s Toby Keith, and I kinda stuck out my hand and said, ‘Hi.’
Toby was always a guy that did things his own way, and I think of that, I think of that fondly now when I think of him. We got to be friends later and toured with him, but that’s how I met him. He laid a guy out at my feet at the Fiddle and Steel.”
Toby Keith, man. What a legend.
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