Eric Church Wants to Take Fans to New Places With Double Down Tour

Eric Church will kick off his Double Down Tour on Jan. 18, performing two back-to-back shows in most cities. The tour marks his first since his exhausting 2017 Holdin' My Own Tour, playing for over three hours straight without an opening act.

As Church gets ready to launch his next trek, the North Carolina native promises even more music, more energy — and a more prepared headliner.

"I think a lot of it we learned on the last one, but when we booked the last tour, we booked the tour before we decided the kind of show – what we were going to do," Church explained in a press release. "So, we ended up with four or five shows a week, sometimes at three-hour shows, and it was tough physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The whole thing was really, really hard on me, very draining. So, this time knowing that we are going to do that, we booked it in a way that I think we can do that the best way. So, we're going to a city, we're going to stay in a city and we're going to play three, three-and-a-half hours."

Church saw how much his fans were hanging onto his every word while he sang, which is why he is designing this tour even more with them in mind.

"What I love is last time we went to Detroit, for example, and [it was] one of the best shows on the tour," Church recalled. "We played three hours, 10 or 15 minutes, and I remember that night as I was on the bus after going, 'How in the world are we gonna top this?' Well, one way to do it is do two nights and instead of three-and-a-half hours, it'll be seven hours of music, and we're just gonna stay there and make it about this spiritual, musical experience. I think that's what the last tour really taught me is there is a different level of where touring can go for us and for the fans.

"I had not experienced that in my career until the Holdin' My Own Tour," he added. "So, this, I'm hoping is a continuation on that, and we go to a place we hadn't been yet, 'cause they've already taken me places I never thought we'd get to."

Church just released his latest Desperate Man album, his first since Mr. Misunderstood in 2015, but it took that long for Church to figure out exactly what he wanted to say.

"We were lost, in my opinion," he said of the time between records. "I think there was a lot going on there. I had an interesting year personally, and, just in the studio, that safe — what we thought was gonna be the album wasn't working with the creative energy. Two different things were going on. So, what's interesting about Desperate Man was when I went into the album-making process, that song was not written. Like a lot of them on the record, they had not been created yet. I think that desperation of trying to find what this album is, led itself so that song and let it to the title of the album."

Find a list of all of Church's upcoming shows on his Double Down Tour by visiting his website.

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Erika Goldring