I don’t think it’s any secret in country music that Garth Brooks and Eric Church aren’t best friends. And while most of us are well aware of the 2017 CMA Awards moment, it actually goes back even further than that. But before we get to that… let’s walk back through some of the history. In 2017, Eric Church famously called out Garth Brooks after the CMA Awards, following Garth’s big win for his sixth Entertainer of the Year trophy. During the that year, it didn’t take long for fans to notice that something was off while Garth was performing “Ask Me How I Know,” and he later admitted that he had been lip-syncing, blaming it on being sick and in the middle of a 12-show run in 10 days: “We did a game-time call on whether we did sing the track or lip-sync it, and decided to lip-sync because the voice is just not there and you want to represent country music the best you can.” Fans quickly took to Twitter to blast Garth for lip-syncing, especially on a night when he was crowned “Entertainer of the Year.” But it wasn’t just fans who were upset that he didn’t perform live. During an interview with Rolling Stone, Church had some harsh words for Garth: “We don’t use machines. We use instruments. So the winner of the biggest category of the night lip-synced in the biggest moment on the show? F*** that! And I didn’t like his excuse at all.” He also called lip-syncing a “red line” that he’ll never cross with his own performances: “It is and always will be a red line. It’s fabricated. I don’t want young artists thinking it’s OK, because it’s not.” Of course, his comments made waves, and while I personally agree with Eric, I think many, if not most, country music fans felt validated in hearing an artist speak out about something like this. I think most country music fans would rather have you go out there and sound like crap, compared to watching someone lip-sync. It’s not pop music, you’re not dancing all over the stage… it’s just frowned upon in a genre that tends to pride itself on authenticity. And then throw in the fact that fans were watching the so-called Entertainer of the Year do it? It didn’t sit well with a lot of people, and Eric called him out for it. But that wasn’t the last time Church called out Garth… After being was robbed of Entertainer of the Year during the 2019 CMA Awards, he took another not-so-subtle shot at Garth during a show the following week during a performance of Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” changing the lyrics to: “I know Garth didn’t do it this way.” He would later go on record and say that his line change was most about giving the fans something to get excited about, and that he didn’t care about trophies… and any real Eric Church fan would know he’s not lying about that, he’s never been about awards. So while I’m sure Church respects the success Garth has had as a country artist (I mean, he was singing his songs in high school), it seems like Eric hasn’t always been Garth’s biggest fan. Let’s go all the way back to the year 2006, when Eric had just put out his debut studio album Sinners Like Me, which was produced by Jay Joyce and put him on the map in terms of being an artist who was willing to go out on a limb with the kind of music he made. It really was so different than anything else coming out at that time, and that’s why is resonated so deeply with fans right away, reaching #7 on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart. In an interview with Today way back in 2006, Eric didn’t have much to say about how much he looked up to Garth, saying he would “take his record sales” but certainly didn’t own every album, implying that he was never a massive fan: “I’ll take his record sales. But I can’t say I owned every Garth record.” I mean, it’s so much funnier now knowing all the history between these two… I’m sure he meant nothing by it, really, he was a young artist still in his 20s at this point and certainly didn’t want to come out swinging at a massive, very established artist like Garth, but he also didn’t pretend like he knew every song and was some huge superfan. Plus, Garth had already been retired for a number of years by 2006… he wasn’t exactly at the forefront of the country scene. Considering how early this was in his career, I very much respect his honesty because you could probably count on one hand the number of artists who would be willing to do that these days. Hell, we’ve asked a number of artists about Garth on the podcast, and everybody has nothing but nice things to say about him. Eric went on to say: “I sing about real life. I try to write about me and the people I know. You narrow it down, keep it simple.” He’s only continued to do it his way, writing about real life and the people he knows, and today, Eric put out his live album Evangeline vs. The Machine Comes Alive, which features an awesome live rendition of “Sinners Like Me,” among many other songs, so I’ll leave you with this… The post “Can’t Say I Owned Every Garth Record” – Eric Church’s Beef With Garth Brooks Goes Back Way Further Than Most People Realize first appeared on Whiskey Riff.