Michael Erker

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I have been surrounded by music since I can remember. I’d be tumbling around the living room with my brother while my Dad was playing Joni Mitchell on the guitar in the other room. He used to wake me up for school singing “Rise and Shine, Here Comes the Morning Glory” or “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, accompanying himself on the piano. I got to play his guitar for the first time when I was four or five and I remember being perplexed, but extremely intrigued. I kind of fiddled around on and off for about the next ten years. I never really learned any real songs or even any real chords for that matter. It wasn’t until I heard a friend of mine play an electric guitar that I knew I absolutely had to have one of my own. I got a hand-me-down guitar from my brother. It was an old “Electra” and I loved it (Still do in fact). I played it everyday for hours on end. I’d crank up the distortion and play power chord after power chord. I sounded really bad. In fact, I really sucked at it, BUT I loved being bad at the guitar more than anything else I had experienced yet. It was perfect.
So, I got good enough after a couple years and found my way into a band. We were good and we were young and that weirded people out. Our first show was at Cicero’s in St. Louis opening up for some band I no longer remember. It was electrifying. We had a good review and we got paid so naturally we thought, “Holy Crap! We are almost famous. ” Obviously that was not the case, but we were freshman in high school and in our minds we were already there.
Fast forward to reality. Three great years of making very fun rock music with my best friends ends. College. Dorm life. Cramped rooms. Roommates. People studying. Acoustic guitar. Having to play solo acoustic for a while really opened some doors for me creatively. I no longer could rely on band mates to fill in dead space, so I started figuring out different chord voicing and stronger vocal melodies. I began writing music and words that really complimented each other and actually reflected what I was feeling. So now I am performing and writing as frequently as possible. I purchased a boomerang loop pedal to feed my need to play a guitar solo every once and a while, and I am truly enjoying myself. I will continue to record, and write, and play, and record, and write, and play, and write and be grateful. Thanks for reading I hope you enjoy listening as much as I do performing.

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