The Zen of Eric Andrew Taylor

By Nick May, Photography By Matthew Coughlin and Caleb Pierce

It’s 7:00  on a Monday night, and on my laptop screen, from his borrowed room in Fairhope, Alabama, is the eternally optimistic Eric Andrew Taylor. He’s just wrapped up  another day on his way to a Master’s degree in Speech Pathology from the University of Southern Alabama, and he is eating ramen noodles. Not exactly the image of a budding singer/songwriter/producer/engineer/mixer/marketer extraordinaire (well, except for the noodles). But I know what this dude is really about. I know he probably worked on the latest iteration of a yet unreleased track just before class. And I know his ramen is most likely beef flavored, because of his rare allergy to poultry. But the most important thing I can tell you about my friend, Eric Taylor, is that he’s on to you. He’s aware of his audience, even if they are unaware of him, and he’s writing music that speaks to where they are now, even if it takes him ages to do it.

“I would love to just be a soundtrack for someone’s happiest points or their lowest points,” he says between slurps. “That soundtrack when you’re dropping your girlfriend off or getting broken up with.” Eric recently released a music video and iTunes version of the single “Dance with Me” from his latest EP It All Ends with a Glitch. The single is a soft and sentimental acoustic love letter that tastefully represents the sweet melancholy inherent in Eric’s writing style. And reactions have been good. Though he is thrilled to have connected, it isn’t the verbal praise that keeps Eric going. “It’s so cool if it’s important to someone, but if I never heard [the praise], I would be fine.”

At 23, Eric’s candid outlook on “making it” is a refreshing departure from the sense of entitlement that has racked our generation. “I’ll always be making and recording music, but it’s never been on the agenda to make a living at it. It still blows my mind that people even pay for it. I love the idea of it, but realistically, I would be just as happy recording others, while recording myself.” It’s a philosophy that he has maintained since his first step into the music world. That overwhelming desire that most musicians feel to perform live for sold out arenas while adoring fans shout their lyrics with all the force in their smoke-imbued lungs…Eric has never felt it. From the moment he started, all he wanted was to record. “I make music 80 percent for myself, because I like it, and I like the process of it. The remainder, I’m not going to lie, it’s nice to have people tell you they like your stuff. Touring would be awesome, but I love being in the studio. That’s where it happens. Live concerts are great, but there are a lot of people who can be reached in alternative ways.”

While the world of social media is immediate and far smaller, the payoff for original art today tends to be more sporadic or infrequent (sometimes barely at all). In light of this, Eric has gotten used to finding his fulfillment in other ways. “It’s a bunch of small things that I get excited about. There’s a pre-chorus in “Nice Guys” (a currently unreleased track with poppy hooks, handclaps, and a singalong vibe). It goes A to E to B, and the second time around it goes A to E to A minor. I don’t know music theory, but when that happened, it made my night.” For every creative breakthrough, Eric experiences a thousand prolonged hours of cramming for finals, commuting Mobile’s steamy overpasses, waiting on the muse or just being plain wrong. He wrote his newest EP while living on a friend’s couch for the better part of two years. “I love how Chris Martin (Coldplay) put it. He said a lot of times, songs are a labor of love that you have to massage and massage, but when inspiration hits you, it’s like waiting for the bus. Sometimes it doesn’t come, but when it does, it’s crazy. ‘Dance with Me’ took two years to finish, because I didn’t have my own space. It was one of these things where hopefully everyone is gone and I’m inspired. Stars had to align.”

The beauty in Eric’s creative approach is the brutal honesty. The process is borderline tedious. As far as the authenticity behind what he is feeling when he makes his art, it’s as real as the emotion the music itself portrays. “You want to love the songs, but it’s to that point where it’s hard for me to listen to a mix. There’s one side of me that’s extremely obsessive. I want it to be exactly as it is in my head. But then there’s the other side of me that knows it’s the imperfections that make the song. It’s a balancing act.” Eric hired Nashville’s Paul Kimsal (a former Panhandle native) to mix and master his new record; a decision he feels was one of the scariest, and yet, most fulfilling artistic moves he’s ever made.

Like any great artist, Eric is self-critical, overly obsessive, and measures the success of a given day by how much time he was able to spend creating. Needless to say, there’s an excitement in his voice to finally have finished the record and be moving on to whatever is next, but Eric knows the difference between vocation and evocation. He also knows the only thing separating the two is time. So what is left for a twenty-something musician, perpetually on the verge of a creative breakthrough, yet eternally in the throes of academia? For Eric Andrew Taylor, it’s zen-like patience and focus. “It’s the magic of creating in the moment,” he says. “And that’s enough.”

Eric’s new record, It All Ends with a Glitch is available online wherever music is sold or streamed. Visit his website (www.ericandrewtaylor.net) for videos, updates, photos, and to listen to new and previously released tracks. Find Eric on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or your favorite social media platform.