Eric Church slams Garth Brooks for lip-syncing
Eric Church is not impressed with musicians who lip-sync, and that includes country legend Garth Brooks. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Church had fiery words for Brooks, who admitted to lip-syncing during November's CMA Awards, where he won entertainer of the year.
Church said of the country music genre, "We don't use machines. We use instruments." Then the singer went on a diatribe against Brooks, who said he had to lip-sync his performance of "Ask Me How I Know" at the CMAs because he lost his voice after performing 12 shows in 10 days.
Church, who was also up for entertainer of the year but lost to Brooks, said, "So the winner of the biggest category of the night lip-synced in the biggest moment on the show? F**k that! And I didn't like his excuse at all."
Brooks told ET that after days of back-to-back concerts, he made a "game-time" decision to lip sync in order to save his voice for his tour.
"My concern was the seven nights that were to follow," he told Nancy O'Dell in November. "People pay their money. Those people work hard to go to concerts so I decided to save my voice for that. As much as I love the awards shows, it's about the people who fill those seats live, man."
But Church said he didn't want to hear Brooks' excuses.
"I felt like he was speaking for the other nominees. I can speak for myself – I'm not lip-syncing," said the "Record Year" singer. "If I can't sing, I won't sing, or I'll sing badly. But at least you'll get what you get."
Church reiterated his hardline stance for aspiring country stars, saying, "I don't want young artists thinking it's OK, because it's not."
