If you’re just starting out and want to make it on Broadway . . . Nashville’s Broadway, that is . . . you have to play covers.  And when Eric Church moved to Nashville, he wasn’t interested in that.

He says, quote, “I couldn’t get a gig on Broadway.  Nothing.  I couldn’t even bartend on Broadway.  They didn’t want original music.  They wanted you to play whatever the songs were at the time.  I didn’t really do that.  I was a songwriter.”

He finally found a place called the Fiddle & Steel Guitar Bar, where he bonded with other guys who were serious about songwriting . . . including Toby Keith, who had just laid out a guy who was harassing other patrons.