Country star Eric Church admits he’s still having a hard time moving on from the Las Vegas massacre, which is said to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
On Oct. 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of hotel onto a crowd watching Jason Aldean perform at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. Police reported at least 58 people were killed in the shooting and more than 500 people were injured.
Church, who performed at the venue just two days before the massacre, tells Sunday Sitdown host Willie Geist that he was never the same after he heard what had happened.
“I mean, we’ve all had bad years, but, 2018 was a really bad year for me and it started with Vegas,” he said. “There’s certain indelible things that you just don’t get over, and I think that was one for me.”
“And after that, right after that, I had a health scare. I had a blood clot and thought I was going to die,” Church continued. “And then, my brother died, you know? So all this happened, within a matter of months.”
In 2018, Church revealed to Rolling Stone that he underwent an emergency surgery for a blood clot in his chest that was due to a birth defect. That was also the same year that his brother, Brandon, died. The country star explained that those events humbled him in more ways than one.
“I think, up until that point, you can listen to the music, maybe, and you can see that I was brash, arrogant, in a lot of ways,” he told Geist. “But it changes, when you have those things happen to you. And I think it made the music more humble and, maybe, more observant.”
Church also opened up about how the Las Vegas shooting affected him, explaining that the bond between an artist and their fans is “sacred,” but that bond was “shattered” when gunman Stephen Paddock decided to cut some of those lives short.
“I had a lot of fans die,” Church said. “And I played the (Grand Ole) Opry right after that, and didn’t want to be there. But I remember, there were a number of fans that had went to the Vegas show that were then going to fly across the country to come to the Opry show, to see me play the Opry.”
“That was a part of their travel and some of ‘em got shot,” he said. “They died. And I remember being at the Opry, that night and… it’s still raw in a lot of ways, but just not something that affects you. And it broke me, in a way.”
Church performed at the Grand Ole Opry just days after his performance in Vegas. While onstage, he paid tribute to the victims with a new heartfelt song called “Why Not Me.”
In the song, he says, “And when the morning sun hits the mountain / And a glorious still calms the breeze / I’ll ask the God of infinite wisdom / Why you and why not me?”
