While he may be one of the quieter figures within the local singer/songwriter scene, Mike Erb has nonetheless been racking up his share of notable achievements lately.
The most recent is his latest disc, Every Little Light, which he describes as a generally spontaneous affair thanks to the rhythm section on the album, Adam Buschlen and Craig Lapsley, who previously played together with Rob Szabo and Steve Strongman in Plasticine.
"I had to record a demo on pretty short notice back in November in order to get a Factor grant, so I called Adam and he suggested doing it in Craig's studio, whom I'd never played with before,'' Erb says. "But those guys have known each other forever, and we all really clicked together. The three of us ended up banging out 11 songs in a pretty short space of time, and everything just fell into place nicely. I used to go see those guys play all the time back in the day, so it was really fun for me to record with them.''
While Erb's sound can still safely be called rootsy without falling into either the country or rock categories specifically, he describes Every Little Light as having a marked pop feel, a reflection of his maturity as a songwriter.
"The writing aspect has been coming more easily to me,'' he says. "Up until now I think I've sometimes pigeonholed songs according to a style I wanted to emulate, but with Adam and Craig we hardly talked about anything beforehand. We just played the songs naturally and it felt great."
The time that Erb has spent in both Nashville and New York City also plays a big part in his new material. He tends to prefer the latter now, and continues to return regularly for gigs.
"The title of the album comes from a line in the song One Excuse To Go, which was inspired by my first trip to New York,'' he says.
"I'm really proud of the imagery in that song, and also this idea I've always struggled with about needing to be in a big city in order to feel like I'm successful in a way. I don't totally believe that anymore, but the singer/songwriter scene in New York is so amazing right now. There's not many names that most people would recognize, but it's given me a new definition of what success is.''
