ERIC CHURCH did an interview in the August edition of "Rolling Stone" . . . and he did not hold back. On anything. He revealed for the first time that he ALMOST DIED last year from a blood clot in his chest. He also talked about his dark mood after the Route 91 tragedy, and offered his take on gun control, climate change, immigration, and the presidential election.
Let's start with the blood clot. It began last summer with a tingling in his hand, and then swelling in his arm. Things kept escalating and before long he was in surgery. Turns out it was a birth defect where his top rib was too close to his collarbone.
Quote, "It's called thoracic outlet syndrome. There's a major vein that runs through there, and when I would raise my arm, it would pinch it and damage the vein. Like any clot, when you get enough pressure, it's gonna blow."
He had another surgery a week later to remove the top rib, and then spent a lot of time doing rehab and physical therapy before going back on the road in the fall. Like I said, he gave brutally honest answers to some really heavy questions.
Here are a few more of his takes:
On Garth Brooks Lip-Syncing at the CMAs: "That [ticked] me off. Lip-syncing is a red line. It's fabricated. I don't want young artists thinking it's okay, because it's not. If I can't sing I won't, or I'll sing badly. But at least you'll get what you get."
On the Route 91 Tragedy: "It got dark for me for a while. I went through a funk for six months. I had anger. I've still got anger. Something broke in me that night, and it still hasn't healed. There's a part of me that hopes it haunts me forever."
On Gun Control: "I'm a Second Amendment guy. It's in the Constitution, but nobody should have 21 AKs and 10,000 rounds of ammo. Something's gotta be done. A person can't have an armory and pin down a Vegas SWAT team for six minutes."
On the Blame Game: "I blame the lobbyists. And the biggest in the gun world is the NRA. I don't understand why we have to fear them. It's asinine. Why can't we solve this? Start with the bump stocks and the gun shows. Shut a couple of these down. I do think that will matter a little bit. I think it will save some lives."
On the 2016 Election: "Hillary [Clinton] just bored me. I just didn't see much." His wife voted for Donald Trump and she tried to get him to do it too. He told her, quote, "Ain't gonna happen. I don't want to vote for somebody I'll regret voting for."
On Climate Change and Clean Energy: "If we're not thinking about that as our future, we've completely lost our minds."
On the NFL Protests: "I was taught by my father to take my hat off [for the anthem], but if somebody wants to do something different, it's not my place to tell them not to. That's how the Constitution works."
On Immigration: "I believe there's a better way to handle it, but we're a country of immigrants, and we always should be."
He even gave his take on Abortion Rights: "I'm a pro-life guy at heart, but I don't think we should change the law. Some things you shouldn't govern."
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