When Eric was a small boy of 5, his dad brought home a guitar he'd rescued from the garbage dump and taught Eric his first three chords and his first song, Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues." From then on, Eric devoured the sounds of Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, Creedance Clearwater Revival, and The Ventures. He practiced so hard that by age 8, he wrote his first song, and by age 13, he made his first stage debut. While his performance of John Anderson's "Swingin'" didn't impress his classmates, Eric knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

In his mid-teens, Eric was part of a series of bands that played VFW openings, pool parties and anywhere else they could. After attending a year of college on a full music scholarship, he told his parents he wanted to make music his life. In 1990-91 he was the star attraction at a Chatanooga collegiate club called Yesterdays.

He then moved to Nashville and spent three years on the road playing in front of some of the rowdiest crowds you'd ever want to meet. After a near-fatal crash in Illinios, that period of his life ended.

He returned to Nashville in 1994 and got a staff songwriter's job at Orbison's Still Working Hard Music publishing company. To make ends meet he also parked cars at the Hermitage Hotel, shoveled gravel on roadways, and worked for a landscaper, but music still burned inside him.

Eric found that all the labels he visited wanted the same thing; a guy with a cowboy hat, buckle and boots. Eric said he couldn't do that, he was "a guitar slinger." Discouraged, he headed to the wrong side of town and in 1996, ended up with a weekly gig at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge.

Within weeks he developed a following with his sizzling country-rockabilly combo. By the time the word reached Music Row, there were women dancing on top of the bar, and hundreds singing along with him.

"These label people walked in and saw 250 people singing the words to every song and they couldn't believe it. I would watch the exact same people who weren’t interested a couple of years before all of a sudden begin to light up. As they would walk out they'd give me that grin and wink and drop their business cards right into the tip jar."

It was then that Shania Twain hired Eric to back her on the Country Music Association Awards Show and he was then offered the chance to tour with her. Eric turned her down, instead continuing to persue his own career goals.

Mercury Records agreed to let him make music his way, and he entered the studio with producer, Keith Stegall. The result is the work of a fire-breathing rockabilly evangelist. Millions can now hear what the honky tonkers on Lower Broadway found so infectious.

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