Country Music Star Eric Church Visits CBS SUNDAY MORNING Today

Country music star Eric Church, who has made a name for himself as an occasional bad boy, still views himself an outsider despite his success, he tells Mark Strassmann in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH CHARLES OSGOOD to be broadcast today, Feb. 9, 2014 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

Church's 2011 album Chief earned Album of the Year honors from both the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music and was nominated for a Grammy. Still, he tells Strassmann, he embraces the outsider role.

"Musically, we make outside choices," Church tells Strassmann. "I'm sympathetic to anybody that does their own thing. I'm sympathetic to people that beat to their own drummer and whether it's popular or not, they do it anyway."

Church knows the outsider role well. His first album included a song called "Two Pink Lines," about two teens sweating out a pregnancy test, and followed it with the pro-marijuana anthem, "Smoke A Little Smoke."

He was also famously fired in 2006 as the opening act for Rascal Flatts after admittedly playing too long and too loud during a concert at Madison Square Garden. "It honestly wasn't a great fit," Church says. "I'm not a guy that follows rules great. And when some rules were put out there, I broke them."

These days Church is awaiting next week's release of his new album, The Outsiders, which he says is contains the 12 best songs out of 121 he wrote for the collection. He also talks with Strassmann about songwriting, his family and touring. Church tells Strassmann that he found his voice by playing small bars when he was first starting out.

"You just had people drunk, dancing and falling into me and everybody," he says. "You learned in that environment that it really was about the spirit of the music."

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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