Eric Church Talks The Release Of His Next Album: Says It Will Be A While

Eric Church released his Outsiders album last year, and although he hasn’t officially started working on his next album, he has been giving it some thought.

“It takes me a while. And I was looking [at the calendar] the other day, it’s gonna be a while for me,” the country music superstar said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.

“I do feel like Outsiders is kind of our outlier album, no pun intended. And it freed me up a little bit. I feel like it is kind of the crazy one and I kind of shook that tree a little bit. And I don’t know where we’re going next.”

Church has never been one to put limitations on his music. He is known for changing things up and pushing boundaries like he did with “Outsiders,” which was released on February 11, 2014 and nominated for Best Country Album at this year’s Grammys, according to Radio. Now, Eric says that he isn’t afraid to go anywhere with his music.

“I’ve had some work and some not work. ‘Cold One’ and ‘Outsiders’ didn’t really work, ‘Talladega’ and ‘Hometown’ were Number One. That’s the fun part… [Outsiders] is supposed to be a little bit crazy and now, coming off of that, I’m just not scared to go really anywhere. I feel like we can chase a bunch of different things and it’d be cool to see what happens.”

Eric says he won’t know what direction his follow-up album will take until he gets in the studio; it could be more tame or it could be crazier than the last.

“I haven’t gotten to the studio yet, but that will be interesting, ‘Do you wanna go nuttier or is it more tame, is it totally different, is it more subtle and stripped down? I don’t know, man. It’s just one of those things that I don’t know till we get to the studio and we see what it all looks and sounds like.”

“We totally widened the field now. You know, for the Chief album, I felt a little bottled in because of the success of that and it was the first commercial success we had that I feel like now we’ve been able to widen it back out and I can just go be a songwriter. Whatever happens happens.”

Aside from his success in the industry, Church has other things to be excited about. He and his wife Katherine welcomed their second child, a boy named Tennessee Hawkins, on February 15.

“I’m thrilled that Hawk and his mom are doing well,” Eric said, announcing the birth on Facebook. “We aren’t sleeping very much, but we are enjoying every part of this incredible journey. I’m very blessed and thankful.”

[Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images]