Jelly Roll could not have been more excited to meet one of his own musical idols, Eric Church, for the first time.
However, the epic evening ended up going off the rails, he revealed in a hilarious recent interview.
Jelly Roll and Church sat down for a mutual interview billed as “The Conversation” during the 2025 Country Radio Seminar in Nashville on Friday (Feb. 21), and one of the stories Jelly Roll told was about the first time he met Church, whom he considers a mentor.
The meeting came when Church first hired Jelly Roll to open a show for him. It’s rare for him to even have an opening act, but he was impressed enough with what Jelly Roll was doing that he asked him to open a show at the Gorge in Washington.
Once Church had actually seen Jelly Roll onstage live, he decided to invite him for a private meeting, and the “Liar” singer came prepared, bringing a long list of notes and questions that he wanted to ask the more established singer about how to run his business, navigate the music industry and more.
As Jelly Roll recalled, the two men were “ripping shots” of tequila while Church “answered every question.”
“Normally I bury people when I have to go dark with them, but this is not how that night panned out for me,” Jelly Roll recalled with a laugh, admitting that Church drank him under the table.
“I ended up skinny-dipping in the Columbia River,” he recounted, laughing again.
“True story, like Baloo the Bear (from The Jungle Book),” he added, singing, “The bare necessities …” as Church joined the room in uproarious laughter.
Jelly Roll didn’t wake up until 5PM the next afternoon, and he was receiving an IV transfusion to help him with his massive hangover when he got word that Church had already been trying to reach him for several hours.
It turned out that Church wanted Jelly Roll to join him onstage for a song that night.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, f–k,'” Jelly Roll recalled, thinking that he was in no shape to go out and sing on such a large stage.
In the end, he did pull it together enough to perform with Church, and he told the audience he’s been lucky enough to do so on other occasions since.
“It’s been awesome,” he enthused.
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