Ella Langley Recalls The Time She Almost Fainted During Her First Interaction With Eric Church

Ella Langley will never forget the first time she met Eric Church. While co-hosting Country Countdown USA with Lon Helton, the songstress opened up about this surreal moment and how she almost fainted at the sight of the country music icon.

It all went down last July during the taping of the Toby Keith tribute TV special filmed inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. That night, Eric Church took the stage to perform the hit song, “As Good As I Once Was” while Langley teamed up with Riley Green to sing another one of Toby Keith’s beloved classics, “Who’s Your Daddy?”

When the star-studded lineup of country acts weren’t performing, they had the chance to hangout and mingle side-stage at the honky-tonk style bar decorated with red Solo cups. That’s where Langley came face-to-face with Eric Church and decided to introduce herself.

 “There was a bar on the stage, and seated at the bar were all these famous country stars including Eric Church,” she explained. “So I walked up to him and shook his hand.”

What happened next took the “Weren’t For The Wind” singer completely off guard.

 “He slid his sunglasses down, looked me in the eye and said, ‘Ella Langley, I love your voice.’  I could have passed out right there,” she recalled. “That was my meeting Eric Church story.”

The One Question Langley Has For Church

It’s safe to say that moment left a lasting impression on Langley, because Church came to mind once again during another recent interview.

During a conversation on Country Nights Live with Bev Rainey, Langley was asked, “If you could pick any other country artist and ask them one question, who would the artist be? What’s the question?”

Although a slew of questions for various artists ran through her head, Langley quickly brought up something that has puzzled country music fans for years – Why does Eric Church’s signature look include dark sunglasses?

“Oh, does Eric Church need his sunglasses?” she wondered before firing off a round of follow-up questions. “Are there prescriptions in there…did it start out not, and then did he put it in there? I just wanted to know.”

She added, “one time he did put ’em down and I saw those eyeballs and I was like, ‘holy…’”

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The truth is, Eric Church’s dark sunglasses have become a staple in his appearances even both on and off the stage. Back in 2023, while reflecting on his third studio album, Chief, in a conversation with his record label, the award-winning act revealed the practical reason why he started wearing sunglasses on stage early on in his career.

“We have been playing a lot of little bars and clubs and honkytonks where the lights are about a foot from your face. And I wore contacts, where this all started, the initial inception was, my contacts would fall out, pop out on stage, and I would be blind for half the show, so I started wearing sunglasses, then I put on a hat to stop the sweat and it just became this thing.” 

This look stayed with Church as he started to play in bigger venues and develop a bigger fanbase. His crowds started to expect the glasses and hats every night, giving him no chance to change things up. So he stuck with it and also earned his iconic nickname, “Chief,” in the process.

“People in the crowds would have on hats and sunglasses and wouldn’t let me adjust that, so it just became this thing naturally. So, that was show time, it was kind of my uniform,” he explained. “The band starting joking with me, when I put the hat and sunglasses on, they go ‘Alright, its Chief time, Chief’s here.’ But I laughed about it, it was a joke.” 

So there you have it – the answer to the question both Ella Langley, and just about every fan wonder when they see Church rocking the shades on stage. It turns out the glasses weren’t just for style, but instead they were necessary for his performances.