Eric Church – “Desperate Man”

Eric Church, the Nashville country star who may or may not be our greatest working rock star, is coming back. Back in 2015, he surprise-released the album Mr. Misunderstood directly to his Church Choir fan club, and yesterday, he announced a follow-up called Desperate Man and shared its title track to that same fan club. Now, a day later, the song has hit the rest of the world.

"Desperate Man" is less country and more straight-up Southern rock, and it has more than a little "Sympathy For The Devil" in its musical DNA. Church co-wrote the song with Texas musician Ray Wylie Hubbard, who previously got a shout-out in Church's Mr. Misunderstood title track, and Hubbard took to Twitter today to talk about the song's genesis. "Eric said let's write about a desperate man," he wrote. "I said I once was so desperate I went to a fortune teller to get my future read and she said I didn't have one. He smiled, laid down a groove, and we rode it to town."

Church recorded "Desperate Man" and the rest of the album with his longtime producer Jay Joyce. The whole thing will be out in October, and if you're a member of Church's Church Choir club, you'll get it for free. Listen to "Desperate Man" and watch Church's video message to his fans below.

Desperate Man is out 10/5 on EMI Nashville.