Country Meets Metal - This Ain't Yo Mama's Country Music

When Eric Church took the stage at the CMT Awards to play, he was paired with an unlikely partner -- Lzzy Hale from Halestorm. The two slammed his song "That's Damn Rock & Roll" (from The Outsiders) right out of the ballpark, showing that Eric can rock with the best of them and Lzzy can wow any audience.

There was a lot of head-scratching over his song choice since the tune isn't his current single - "Give Me Back My Hometown," which peaked at #4 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. The confusion went hand and hand with the fact that he's going to have Halestorm on his Outsiders World Tour this November and December.

But for the guy who loves to push the boundaries of the genre, it was an easy choice. He explained that Hale is one of his favorite singers and he feels like her music meshes really well with his. That was why he invited the Grammy-winning Halestorm to tour with him.

For Lzzy, it was a pleasant surprise as she didn't actually meet Church until rehearsals for the show earlier this week. She told Fox News, "Honestly I think that the industry overall — the rock industry, country, whatever genre you take a fancy to — I think it needs more people like that. It needs more people taking risks and being, for lack of a better term, a badass and not necessarily going straight by the rules. Crossing a few boundaries, crossing a few genre lines."

The performance got a standing ovation from the entire audience and one can imagine that Halestorm just got a ton of new fans from the country world.