“I Lose Sleep at Night”: Eric Church Explains How He Put His All Into His New Album, ‘Evangline vs. The Machine’

After news of his new album, Evangeline vs. The Machine, and its release date leaked via Apple Music yesterday (March 19th), Eric Church has officially unveiled the project, with the ‘Springsteen’ hitmaker stressing how much the record means to him.

In an official statement, The Chief has touched on why he still considers albums the highest art-form in a musical landscape that is increasingly oriented towards singles.

He muses, “An album is a snapshot in time that lasts for all time. I believe in that time-tested tradition of making records that live and breathe as one piece of art – I think it’s important”.

Evangeline vs. The Machine arrives on May 2nd, 2025, and features the brand new single, ‘Hands Of Time’ - which dropped today (March 20th) - alongside seven other tracks.

“I’ve always let creativity be the muse. It’s been a compass for me”, Eric Church reflects, “The people that I look up to in my career and the kind of musicians I gravitate to never did what I thought they were going to do next – and I love them for it. I never want our fans to get an album and go, ‘Oh, that’s like Chief or that’s like this.’ Painstakingly, I lose sleep at night to try to make sure that whatever we do creatively, they go, ‘Wow, that's not what I thought’. I think that's my job as an artist”.

In addition, Eric Church has delved into the inspiration behind ‘Hands Of Time’, “As I get older, I’m looking for things that make me feel not as old. I can honestly say that when I hear music or see something from my past, I feel like I did then; I relate to what it was then. I really believe that a good way to handle that is with music”.

‘Hands Of Time’ is joined on the Evangeline vs. The Machine tracklist by the haunting ‘Darkest Hour’, which Eric Church released back in October. All the proceeds from the rousing offering go towards North Carolina's Hurricane Helene relief effort.

Church movingly expands on how important ‘Darkest Hour’ is becoming, as well as sharing his pride at getting to host the Concert for Carolina benefit with his friend and fellow North Carolina native, Luke Combs, “That song had the chance to change things - it already has. The greatest concert I’ve ever played was the Concert for Carolina - that’s the greatest thing I’ve been involved with. This song played a big part of that night and is a rallying cry for the people there that still need a lot of help. As a person who writes and performs a song, seeing it truly impact people’s lives is the greatest thing you can hope to accomplish”.

Lyrical depth and emotional weight are two things that Eric Church has never shied away from throughout his stellar discography, epitomised by his visceral forthcoming ode, ‘Johnny’, which Church performed during CRS in Nashville earlier in the year.

“About a year ago, we had a shooting here in Nashville at the Covenant School”, Church outlined at CRS, “Where my kids go to school, my two boys, is about a mile from that school. I will tell you something, the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life - parent or otherwise - is dropping them off at that school the day after the shooting and watching them walk inside. I sat in the parking lot for a long time, and as fate would have it, as I was pulling out, Charlie Daniels was playing, ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia.’ I remember thinking, ‘Man, we could use Johnny right now, because the Devil’s not in Georgia, he’s everywhere’. I went home and wrote ‘Johnny’”.

Eric Church's Evangeline vs. The Machine drops on May 2nd, 2025, with the project marking the country trailblazer's first original studio album since the lauded Heart & Soul in 2021.

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