Eric Church on “The Skittles Mix”

Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton had a chance to attend Eric Church’s show in Denver a couple months ago.  The Outsiders World Tour has been one of the biggest shows of the year.  So when Eric co-hosted the Countdown, Lon had a chance to ask him about it:

You have some side-pits around your stage, with maybe 15-20 people on each side of the stage.  “They’re in the stage with us.  It adds to the energy for us. They’re there with you.   They’re beating on the stage.  I can feel them bangin’ on it.  It reminds me of the bars and clubs where they shake the place, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

How are those people chosen? “It’s golden tickets.  We’ll go find people who have been to a lot of shows, pick certain people and we’ll put them there.  My preference is people in the upper level, but because they’re big fans, they get to come down in the pit with us.”

The other thing is during the song “These Boots,” people will throw them on stage: “Yeah, everybody in the place held them up.  It was thousands of boots.  I sign a couple and throw them back.  It’s funny.  There were 18,000 people, and probably 5,000 boots in the air.”

I was watching from the sound booth, and somebody came to me from your crew who gave me a set of headphones where I just heard you, and on the box, it said “Skittles,” what’s that about? “Here’s the inside part of that.  The reason they call that Skittles is that’s my wife’s nickname on the road, and she’s the one who gets that mix.  That’s Skittles’ mix.  The reason they calls her Skittles is you never know what you’re gonna get. It’s like the candy thing. So that’s been my band’s nickname for Katherine.  So the reason you heard Skittles is my production guy calls it Skittles mix, which is MY mix.  That’s her, and she’s gonna kill me for saying that on this show!  But you got to hear what I hear.”

Tags: eric church

Category: Audio, Photos