When Nashville wants you to conform, move to Texas. That’s what Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson did when they were fed up with producers telling them what to do. These two 70’s musicians created a tradition of creative control and musical experimentation called outlaw country. But is there a new Outlaw movement forming? Can current artists call themselves outlaws without getting backlash?
Eric Church seems to straddle the line of being classified as an outlaw without ever proclaiming himself as one.
He started his career by getting kicked off the Rascal Flatts tour and has been pushing the boundaries of Nashville ever since. He does his own music with controversial songs such as “Two Pink Lines” about teen pregnancy and “Smoke a Little Smoke” which is pro-marijuna. Clearly he doesn’t care about conformity. But is this enough to call him a true outlaw?
Some people will come out and support Church as an outlaw. Darius Rucker believes that Church is a bad boy and “the closest we got to Waylon and Willie.” Brad Paisley, at the 2011 CMA awards, called Eric “country’s latest Outlaw” when introducing his performance. But according to Church, it is a word that gets “misused” a lot. He respects the term used for the 70’s and thinks it fits for those artists but “is now used just because people are unsure how to identify an artist.” He hates genres and claims that he doesn’t want to be branded for the type of music that he plays.
Me at an Eric Church concert in 2014
Personally I think his view, and most other peoples view, of his music can be summed up by his song “Outsiders.” First off, the title is a great substitute for the word outlaw. He can use this word to describe himself as different without using the controversial term to avoid backlash. Secondly, in the lyrics he refers to his rock and roll sound with the phrase, “wide open rocking, that’s how we roll.” Church will always admit to having a rock influence. His song “Springsteen” being a great example of this. Lastly, he creates this line between the in crowd and out crowd. He isn’t part of the in crowd and doesn’t want to be, but is going to stand up and show that he his music has a lot to offer.
There are so many different sub genres of country today that it is sometimes hard to categorize an artist into one place. It is also hard not to offend people when trying to do so. In my opinion there will never be another Willie or Waylon, but I do think that there are artists who can and will come close. Eric Church is just one of many who are still trying to fight the “Nashville Sound” while trying to make music that people will listen to.
“Don’t ever try and be like anybody else and don’t be afraid to take risks.” -Waylon Jennings
