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Eric Church's second CD, "Carolina," peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard country chart.

Country music is the place to be, hitmaking singer/songwriter Eric Church says. But there's nothing like the energy of a live, hard rock show, he adds.

When Church brings his band to Jefferson Center tonight, he expects the act will come as close as it can to fusing the song craft of country music to the energy of rock.

"I've said a few times that country music's the greatest out there for songwriters and for representing real life," Church said. "I've always thought that. There will never be -- ever -- a country music show that captures the energy of a rock 'n' roll show. And I've been to all of them. And it just, it ain't there.

"There's just something about that. I don't know if you've ever been to an AC/DC show, or even Metallica. There's just this militant energy that's just something, that's just really viral and rabid. And I've always enjoyed that energy. And we try to bring that as best we can to what we do. ... But at the same time, the songs are country songs."

The combination comes across clearly on songs from Church's second CD, "Carolina" (Capitol), and its success shows that there are plenty of people who like it. "Carolina" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard country chart, and remained at No. 39 last week, its 33rd on the chart.

The record spawned Church's first top 10 country single. "Love Your Love the Most" peaked at No. 3 and remains in the top 30, 19 weeks after its release. The second single, "Hell on the Heart," was at No. 35 on Monday, after five weeks -- Church said that is his fastest-moving single to date.

So, the storied sophomore jinx is averted.

"I think for us ... it's taken us to places that ... I'm excited and fortunate to get to with this record," he said.

He's in no hurry to make record No. 3 and thinks waiting will help "Carolina" and its singles reach their full potential.

"Same principle that applied to 'Carolina' is going to apply to the next record -- not going to make it before it's ready to be made, because I think that's how you get in trouble, and I'm nowhere close right now" to writing it, he said. "So everybody's going to get to enjoy this one a little longer."

Into topics

Church, 32, who grew up in Hickory, N.C., wrote or co-wrote every song on the record, and the lyrics will tell you something about him. According to "Love Your Love the Most," he's a "fan of Faulkner books/And anything my mama cooks."

What's his favorite William Faulkner novel? " 'Absalom, Absalom!' I like," he said. " 'The Sound and the Fury' is good.

"The thing I like about Faulkner is how ... he didn't really shy away from topics. At times, it can be borderline -- it's racial. It involves family. It involves sex. It involves, at times, seedy things. And the way he approaches a lot of those topics is really cool to me."

Church likes to approach his lyrics that way. For examples, he points to two songs from "Sinners Like Me" -- "Two Pink Lines," about a pregnancy scare, and "Lightning," sung from the perspective of a man spending his last hours on death row.

"It's stuff that's happening in real life," Church said. "And sometimes people don't want to talk about that stuff."

Church likes what he calls "attitude songs," too, and the new CD has one, "Lotta Boot Left to Fill," that's loaded with it. Sample lyric: "You sing about Johnny Cash/The man in black would've whipped your ass."

He said he wrote those words as a direct response to different artists who, he believes, use the late Cash's image as part of their pose.

"I was seeing, like, rap artists wear Johnny Cash shirts," he said. "I would love to go and find out how much Cash music they knew.

"And it was kind of funny, too. Sometimes we entertain ourselves as artists and as songwriters, and a little bit of that was tongue-in-cheek. I can remember laughing as we were writing it because we were saying 'The man in black would whip your ass,' but then again, we name-checked Waylon [Jennings] in the chorus."

He added, with a laugh: "Sometimes it's just fun to do, to see if anybody catches it or talks about it."