Eric Church has finally addressed Morgan Wallen’s infamous chair-throwing incident at his bar, Chief’s.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Church remembered the April 2024 night of the incident—three days after the bar’s grand opening—and revealed that Wallen came clean with him immediately.
“Morgan called me from the street after it happened,” Church recalled. “I was watching college basketball, and he said, ‘Hey, this just happened.’ I said, ‘Uh-oh.’”
Worrying that Wallen and, by extension, his bar, would be thrown in the middle of a controversy, Church continued, “I knew it was gonna be noisy, and it was – it was damn noisy. The next day on Fox News, the #1 story was Morgan throwing a chair, and #2 was Israel and Gaza.”
Church wasn’t mad at Wallen. In fact, he showed support, saying: “I used the old Billy Joe Shaver line on him: ‘I’m just an old chunk of coal, but I’ll be a diamond one day.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Church commended Wallen for making amends with the staff working that night and growing past the incident. “He went down [to Chief’s] and apologised to the staff, shook everybody’s hand. I was proud of him.
“It was actually a good thing for Mo,” he concluded. “I think that was a line for him, and he’s done really well since then. It was a thing he’s reacted positively to as a person.”
The chair Wallen threw at Chief’s landed on the floor just three feet from where Metro Police officers were standing, with Wallen receiving three class E felony charges of reckless endangerment and a misdemeanour charge of disorderly conduct.
After being granted a continuance last August, Wallen appeared in court in December and entered a plea of “conditionally guilty,” reducing his felony charges to misdemeanours.
Eric Church just released his eighth album, Evangeline Vs. The Machine, on Friday (2 May). Lauded as “dazzling, challenging, and a masterwork” by Rolling Stone, the album follows 2021’s Heart & Soul trilogy.
“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,” Church said upon announcing the album in March.
“I’ve always let creativity be the muse. It’s been a compass for me. The people that I look up to in my career and the kind of musicians I gravitate to never did what I thought they would do next – and I love them for it.”
Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen will release his new album, I’m The Problem, later this month (16 May).
Countrytown brings you Australia’s best country music news, interviews, charts and more every week! This post was authored by Countrytown and originally published on the Countrytown website. It has been re-published with permission.
