Eric Church

NASHVILLE, TN – December 18, 2008 – Capitol Record Nashville recording artist (and proud North Carolina native) Eric Church was chosen as one of the featured performers at the North Carolina Inaugural Ball for Governor-elect Beverly Perdue, to be held at the state’s capitol, Raleigh, on January 9th.  Church will perform “Carolina,” the title track from his upcoming March 24 album.

The 2009 Governor’s Inaugural Ball features a full weekend of events honoring North Carolina’s newly elected governor and council of state. The crown jewel of the celebration will be on Friday, January 9, the Gala Presentation and Inaugural Ball - where Church is one of the featured performers - in the elegant new Raleigh Convention Center.

“This is a very personal song for me, so when I heard that someone in the Governor-elect’s organization heard the song ‘Carolina’ and decided that it needed to be part of the celebration – well, it means a lot. Apparently this song hit them the same way it’s hitting my fans; I’m grateful that it’s making an impact.  I’m also hoping it means that I can drive a little faster through the state,” Church joked with a laugh.

The performer’s encounter with a prior NC governor was rather, well, alarming: “When I was in high school, I was part of a program where I was a page for then Gov. Hunt for a week – I ran errands, delivered mail, basically just did whatever they needed you to do. On the last day, all the student pages get their photo taken with the Governor in his office, so they rounded us up, stuck us in the room and left us there – unsupervised. Which was not a good idea. I decided it would be funny to sit in the Governor’s chair and put my feet up on his desk – which I did. What I didn’t know was that had I tripped a silent alarm – suddenly, the office was swarming with security. When they finally realized it was just some dumb 16-year old acting stupid, things quieted down. But when Governor Hunt finally entered the room for our photo, the first thing he asked was, ‘Okay – which kid was sitting in my chair?!?’ ” laughed Church. “I’m sure my interactions with the new governor will be less . . . troublesome.”

The Junior League of Raleigh hosts the North Carolina Governor’s Inaugural Ball, which they have done since 1933. Proceeds from the 2009 Inaugural Ball will be used to fund JLR’s community grants and the League’s Center for Community Leadership; the new Center will offer a wide variety of training programs, shared meeting space and networking opportunities to non-profit organizations throughout the state.

While the track “Love Your Love The Most” will be released as a single from the album CAROLINA in January, the song “Carolina” – made available with little fanfare on iTunes as an advanced taste of Church’s sophomore project – has quietly racked up impressive sales figures, thanks to legions of Eric Church fans that are eager to hear new music from the highly anticipated project.

The song’s subject – a performer longing to return to his home – has struck a nerve with listeners: “When I write a song, North Carolina is where I go for inspiration – the people, the memories and experiences, and just the place itself.  Now, after hearing the fan reaction to this song, you realize it’s about everyone’s home, wherever they are from . . . everyone has that ‘place’ that they can go back to and draw from their own feelings and experiences, too. I mean, I wrote ‘Carolina’ myself – it’s very personal. It’s my life. Yet everyone seems to relate to it. That’s what makes a song so special:  words can trigger the same feelings in the listener that it did in the songwriter.”

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