Most people believe that the true measure and heart of a song is how the singer performs and presents it to the listener. A good majority also believe that the heart of the song comes from the person who writes it. When it comes to Eric Paslay, both of these are 100% true. Eric has found gold as both a songwriter and a singer as he had a number one single that he wrote with Jake Owen’s ‘Barefoot Blue Jean Night’ and has a number one single to his credit as an artist, ‘Friday Night.’ New England Country Music had the pleasure of sitting down with Paslay to discuss how he got his start in the industry, touring with Dierks Bentley and what 2015 holds for him.
A lot of musicians start at a very early age and find their love in music and a particular instrument. Eric played piano and violin as a kid in school but neither really stuck with him. Right around when he turned 15 is when he picked up a guitar and started playing. Most of his musical influences came via listening to the radio over the years as Paslay explained to us,
“Driving around, my Dad had a ’68 Mustang and he always had oldies on. That’s probably how the doo wops and wooah’s seeped into my music. I tend to be drawn to songwriters and great songs. Growing up I listened to Rodney Crowell, Cash, Rich Mullins, Tom Petty, Springsteen and U2. If the song is good, I turn it up. I’m drawn to country music more as there are stories and I love writing that way. We all have a heart and soul, we’re all human. It’s just what kind of beat you wanna add to the story you’re telling.”
The dream of playing music started off while Eric was attending Middle Tennessee State University, which is just south of Nashville. He graduated from there and started working at a local Starbucks, “I worked there for about 2 years and a year into I got my publishing deal... Also, I have diabetes so the health insurance was great.” The job also would lead to a chance encounter with a fellow employee who’s husband just happened to play drums for a pretty big country artist.
“A woman named CarryAnn that I worked with was like my husband (Steve Misamore) plays drums for Dierks Bentley. First show I ever played with Dierks was at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City and it was my first ever show with my booking agent, William Morris. Dierks was putting together the set list for his show and kept running back down to hear me as he’s just a fan of music. I think everyone is lucky to have him as an icon in country music. The fun thing is that Dierks, Steve and myself were talking about how we all need to write some songs together and I think that will happen. Life is a funny thing and you have to stick around to see cool things happen. I’m glad God has let me share the gift of music he gave me and get to make some good music with other great artists.”
Photo by Larry McCormack
Paslay got to play over 220-230 shows last year and a lot of them were opening up for Dierks Bentley on The Riser Tour, “It was amazing as he’s a class act dude. Dierks and Randy (Houser) are great music, great people and his crew are awesome.” When the tour stopped at Mohegan Sun back in November, it was his first chance to play the arena. Previously he had played the Wolf Den and will actually be returning there next month on Valentine’s Day. Asked Eric if there is a difference betweeen playing the different venues at Mohegan, “Yeah, more people, man. The stage in the arena is a little bigger, so I might tap my toe a bit harder with all the choreography that I do. The Wolf Den is more intimate and I get to tell a few more stories. Any show in any size room that I go to, I wanna make sure it’s worth people’s time being there.”
First and foremost, Eric is a songwriter at heart and his love for music is instantly obvious within five minutes of speaking with him. He doesn’t really have a processs when sitting down to write a song as he says “There are no rules. I think after swinging the bat so many times, it’s just become muscle memory but in a good way.” One of the hit songs he has written was ‘Even If It Breaks Your Heart’ which was recorded by the Eli Young Band, “Will Hoge and I didn’t sit down and say I got an idea ‘Even If It Breaks Your Heart.” I call it mumble writing and it’s you kind of have a groove going on the guitar and I’ll start to mumble a verse. It’s a flow of conciousness and a melody, a word will fall out here and there. It’s a wild process but it’s pretty simple.” The passion in his songwriting cannot be denied as he wants his music to mean something to the listener and evoke emotions,
“I’m awful at writing what people wanna hear right now. I try to write and think what’s worth hearing and sometimes it’s just a simple fun song and sometimes it’s a song that makes you wanna pull the car over and call someone. I’m glad I was taught to never be afraid to write a song. There’s never a stupid line as it leads to the next one and sometimes the stupid ones are the best and everyone will want to sing a long. If you go into a giant room and a certain song is playing, you might make a good decision or a bad decision based on that song. Now that’s a deep though but music is a powerful drug.”
One thing that people might not know is that Paslay has diabetes. His original plan for a career was to be a pediatric endocrinologist but this changed when a friend, who was part of the group Blake & Brian, moved back to Eric’s hometown of Temple, TX. Brian told him that he needed to move to Nashville and that is what he did, “It came down to, do I wanna go to school for all those years, but if I do become big as a musician I can still help all those kids.” His career choice has been able to provide him both of his dreams in a way as he gets to do a lot of fundraising for juvenile diabetes through JDRF. Eric is glad he can give hope to kids, “I get to visit kids and tell ’em ‘hey… just because you have this, just check your blood sugar and you can do whatever you want.'”
Most people would think that if you ask an artist about which song they are most proud of in their career, it would be the equivalent of asking a parent who their favorite child is. So of course we had to pose this exact question to Eric,
“Any of em that get heard is a miracle. I’ve had a bunch of miracles over the past ten years. As an artist, ‘Friday Night’ because it got my album out and I’m proud of it as it was my first number one as an artist. As a writer, ‘Barefoot Blue Jean Night’ was the one that started all the songs getting recorded. ‘Even If It Breaks Your Heart,’ I feel is just a special song as it’s for the dreamers. Will Hoge and I just kind of wrote it for ourselves as musicians. I’d been told by a friend of mine whose dad is a big producer, that before she started in the business, to remember that the business can break your heart everyday if you let it. So that’s probably where “keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart” came from. We got nominated for a bunch of awards and I even got to go to the Grammys.”
Another interesting fact about Eric that most fans might not know is what he likes to do when not out on the road. Besides being a huge fan of the outdoors and just getting a chance to sit down and fish, he has one more hobby… antiques! When he gets into a town he’ll keep an eye out for antique stores as he loves to do little projects. You could catch him picking up something that’s not too expensive that he can make into something new or cool again. One of these projects is that he makes a lot of random lights out of old antiques and compares this to writing a song,
“When a light comes on it isn’t an opinion, when you write a song it is. When you build a table, it’s a table but when you build a song it might be a hit in ten years and I’ve learned a song has forever to get heard.
Being that Paslay is a huge fan of music in general and that he had a plethora of influences growing up, had to ask him who he’d pick if he could form his own music festival. The artists he chose were Rich Mullins, The Beatles, “with loud enough amps that I could hear them and not all the screaming chicks,” Johnny Cash, US and the last two choices he wisely chose two of the most talented super-groups in music history. Eric picked the Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson) and the Travelling Wilburys (Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.)
As our time was running down in the interview we got a chance to speak with Eric about what lies ahead for his career in 2015,
“Just 2015 and alot more shows. I think the next thing is my current single, ‘She Don’t Love You’ as it’s really connecting with people and is my third date on the radio. Each song is kind of a date..the first date was ‘Friday Night’ to make sure that people wanted to come back and hang again, ‘Song About A Girl’ was a great second date to make sure everyone knows it’s about the girl and the third date is the time you tell people why you love the way you do.”
We here at New England Country Music want to thank Eric Paslay for taking the time to speak with us as it was truly an honor. He’s truly a genuine guy who has a huge love for music as a whole. I personally have been a huge fan of his, became an even bigger one after seeing him perform live and a lifelong fan after having the pleasure to speak with such an amazing artist and person.
Make sure you don’t miss the chance to catch Eric Paslay live when he plays a free show at The Wolf Den at Mohegan Sun on February 14th and Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, RI on March 5th. This show is being presented by our good frends over at Cat Country (WCTK) 98.1.
Also, you can follow Eric on Twitter, and Facebook, and keep up to date at his official website.
This interview was conducted by NECM contributing writer Mike Sullivan. You can follow me on Twitter.