Eric Church might ooze country swagger, but when it comes to Halloween, his favorite costume is the last thing you’d expect. Known for his effortlessly cool vibe, you’d think his cherished trick-or-treating getup would be something rugged and rock ‘n’ roll, like a cowboy zombie or a mutant vampire. But the man who gave us “How ‘Bout You” and “Drink in My Hand” once ditched the tough guy look for something with yellow feathers.

Eric Church as a Muppet

According to Whiskey Riff, one of Church’s treasured Halloween memories is when he dressed up in a costume at the last minute. Church said that he and some of his friends were headed to a Halloween event in Chapel Hill, but since none of them were prepared with costumes, they had to improvise.

The singer-songwriter shared, “I remember when I got a little older, my first year of college, there’s this thing they do every year in Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Halloween on Franklin Street. We drove down from Boone, North Carolina. I had a bunch of friends that went to the University of North Carolina, and we didn’t have costumes and didn’t realize until we were on the way that we had to have costumes.”

They stopped at a costume store on the way: “It’s Halloween, so there’s a run on everything, and couldn’t find anything. We ended up finding this hole-in-the-wall place, but they had the full costume, Sesame Street outfits. The real deal. The real ones (with) feathers and fur. We were Elmo, Cookie Monster, and I was Big Bird.”

“It Was a Mess”

Imagining Church wearing a Big Bird costume is funny enough, although it’s still hard to imagine country music’s rebel in all yellow feathers. But his story about that night proves that impromptu costume shopping for Halloween always make for good stories.

“It’s about 7-foot-4, and you looked out of the body, and then you had these straps that went on since the head was a lot higher. There’s a lot of beer involved on Franklin Street, so we get down there, and as the night went on, my straps broke, so the head would pivot. And so, I would be walking one way, and the head would be facing the other, and it just became this funny… I didn’t know the head was on backward.”

He continued, “I had no idea. I see out of the body, so I’m just kinda walking around, and people were talking to my ass-end. The whole time people’d come up and start talking and go, ‘Hey, turn around.’ And I’d turn around, and they’d go, ‘No turnaround.’ It was a mess. That year, there was no other Big Bird on Franklin Street.”

Here’s to hoping Church will share a pic soon on his Instagram or at least recreate the costume again this year.