Full of Gratitude, E.R.I.E. Celebrates Momentous Year
SCHENECTADY – Crashing back out of the gate, E.R.I.E. is set to close out quite the eventful year with yet another single, “Paradise Falls,” releasing on Dec. 13th. Featuring warm keyboards, overdriven and reverb-soaked guitars, it’s a gentle tune that at first whispers, then seemingly screams, an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love.
I had some time this past week to sit down with the band to go over their past year. What follows is our conversation.
Lucas Garrett: Hey, everybody. Thanks for sitting down. You have a new single, “Paradise Falls,” coming out soon. Tell us about it.
TJ Foster (Vocals/Guitar): Yeah! It’s a song we wrote during Suburban Mayhem. It sat for a little bit – we didn’t feel it fit the tone of the record. It was always one we knew we wanted to put out, but it had to be its own separate thing. One thing Matt came up with near the end of mixing Suburban Mayhem is there’s a little easter egg at the very end of the title track that teases this song. We totally planned that in some Swiftian fashion.
[everyone laughs]
LG: You really are a Swiftie, aren’t you, TJ?
Chad Flewwelling (Drums): Biggest one I know!
LG: You’ve certainly done a lot this year. Let’s go over some of the highlights. Lowlights?
Matt Delgado (Guitar): We put out a flippin’ record! We put the thing together and we got it out into the world, and that was the culmination of a lot of hard work and coming out of the pandemic. It was a labor of love and we’re all immensely proud of it.
Levi Jennes (Bass): One-hundred percent. We got to play a ton of cool shows this year: we went down to the City a few times; we went to Philly; even good ol’ Paterson, New Jersey – which was more fun than we anticipated.
CF: That was way more fun than anybody should have in Paterson.
LJ: We left with our kidneys intact!
CF: We got to play on the stage at Proctors for the Eddie’s Awards, which was insane! We also won a Radio Radio X ListenUp Award.
MD: We played Dad Fest, and brought the kids onstage.
CF: Lowlights would be late-night drives.
TF: Beyond that, lowlights might get down to a personal level. I had a lot of mental health blockades during certain points of the year, like, “What’re you doing?” You have to remind yourself sometimes that you’re doing it because you love to do it.
LJ: I don’t know if it counts as a lowlight, but it was a bit of a crunch to get [the record] out.
CF: That was a lot of work.
LJ: Sustaining the energy to get that out this year was a lot…
MD: But we’re here!
LG: In a world where success is measured against those of others, and where friends seem to be competing in some form or another in terms of opportunities, et cetera, how do each of you, individually, mitigate the mindset necessary to exist in such an industry?
LJ: That is a great question, Lucas.
TF: It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. To borrow a phrase from someone I interviewed recently, I’ve had a really hard time keeping my eyes on my own paper, so to speak. Not to give the token response of “social media this, social media that,” but it does make it hard not to view things as competitive. I think that’s tough because it’s not an appropriate way to measure success. It should be a more personal thing, like, “Did I succeed at the thing I wanted to do? Did I finish the thing I wanted to do?” Yes? Then, you’ve succeeded. But it’s hard to think that way sometimes.
You’re often presented with, “Why didn’t I get the opportunity that so-and-so got?” It’s a frustrating way to think, and you don’t need to think like that. Speaking purely logistically, say we did get all those opportunities, how boring would that be? No one wants to see E.R.I.E. on everythi(ng)! I don’t want to see E.R.I.E. on everything! That’s f*cking boring! We have such a variety of music and talent in this area.
LJ: I think the thing, too, to keep in mind is that, yes, there are opportunities we would’ve wanted to jump on, but we’ve also had a bunch of opportunities that others would’ve wanted to jump on. Realistically, we’re all in this together. Every time we get up on stage it’s a blast before we know it.
LG: How do you talk about what you’re doing without seeming like an egotist?
MD: I don’t know!
TF: I hate talking about my own shit, because that’s how I feel the whole time. I have such a hard time with that.
CF: I just try to fly under the radar and try not to talk about it. I don’t like to bring things up. If someone asks questions, I’ll be more than happy to talk about us. But I keep it low-key.
TF: How do you do it?
LG: Hey, I’m not the one being interviewed!
[everyone laughs]
LG: The way I do it, is I talk about [my projects] all the time. Even though I feel the same way, if I don’t, no one’s going to know what I’m up to. If no one knows what I’m up to, there isn’t going to be anyone in the audience, and if there isn’t anyone in the audience, I’m not going to keep getting work.
MD: That’s a good point.
LG: What are some things you would’ve liked to have had happened that for one reason or another didn’t come to fruition? How did you cope with that?
MD: I would’ve liked to have sold through all the records we printed. We didn’t. I cope with it by continuing to put them on the merch table.
CF: If we would’ve moved some more of the records… but we got so many Spotify spins that it [equals] one record, right?
TF: One CD!
[everyone laughs]
TF: I have moments where I look back at other projects I’ve been a part of. There was one in particular from 15 years or so ago that saw a lot of success: we got on some really big shows; we had songs in TV shows and commercials… It was really cool. The residuals and royalties that came from that felt like, “OK, I’m actually doing the thing!” It’s one of the things I wish we had more access to in this band. Speaking solely on a personal level, it’s like, “Shit! Did I peak at 20?” I guess to answer the question of how do you cope with it… I don’t know. I try to remind myself of the fact that I’m 36 now and still able to do this, and that’s pretty cool.
LJ: From my own perspective, this is the most success I’ve had, but I get where you’re coming from. Time is not infinite – we have a limited amount of time. We haven’t peaked.
LG: Being in a band is like being in a family, in some regards. There are mountains and valleys to every relationship. How do you all work together to get through a valley, should one appear?
CF: We’re all very aware of what the other people in this group need. If TJ needs someone to handle x, y, and z, someone is jumping on it. We’re all very kind to each other; we try to treat each other with the same amount of respect…
TF: …and grace.
CF: Respect and grace that we would want in any situation. We’re all very quick to work through any issues when we do have them.
LJ: I think what really helps is we’re all coming from the same place: we’re all dads; we all have families.
TF: We all have the same external frustrations at different times.
MD: “That one time, Dad came in so pissed!”
[everyone laughs]
LG: Not now, Dad!
[everyone laughs]
TF: If someone comes to rehearsal with a little bit of an “attitude” or something, we all get it! Having that awareness of how we’re all in the same position… I don’t know, Chad put it way more eloquently than I.
MD: At the end of the day, we’re able to remind ourselves that we’re late-thirties, early-forties playing in a rock and roll band. Even if there was a situation that was super challenging (laughs) it still pales in comparison to the real-world crap that goes on in just about every other facet of our lives.
LG: Those in the industry know people like the highlights. But artists aren’t robots, and the same is true for bands. People don’t seem to want to see struggle, yet it could be argued that at the end of the day, leaving out the hard times could be considered fluff. Do any of you deal with situations that are inherently against the grain of the message and image you’d like to portray as a band? How do you handle this, and what would you like to see differently, if anything?
LJ: That was a great seven questions.
[everyone laughs]
MD: All four of us are pretty unapologetically ourselves. That’s the honest portrayal that comes out. I don’t think any of us know how to be anything other than the image we present.
TF: We’re all kind of just somewhat awkward…
MD: Massively awkward!
TF: Massively awkward.
LJ: We don’t have a mission statement. Consistently throughout all this, we’re just four dads playing rock and roll.
MD: I don’t think there’s a lot of “against the grain” that any of us could even feel. We haven’t given it enough time or thought to present a story, other than, “Hey, this is what we are! This is what you get!”
LG: Is there anything you’d like to discuss that we may not have touched upon?
TF: We have a show on Dec. 16th at SingleCut Brewing in Clifton Park. An early show, at 4:00 PM. It’s our last show of the year; we like doing a holiday show every year. We’ll be playing with Sad Dads and Shortwave Radioband. Then, we’re going to take some time off to write.
CF: New music coming in 2024!
TF: Oh! And we just released an effects pedal collaboration with Poison Noises called Suburban Mayhem.
LJ: It’s a delay pedal that switches between a tape delay, and an oil can delay. It has a companion pedal…
TF: The switch on that one is a sustain. If you press and hold it, it’ll stack the delays until you get that crazy, noise “wall of sound” effect.
LG: Alright, guys. Thanks for your time!
TF, LJ, MD, CF: Thanks, Lucas!
Comments are closed.