Getting To Know You - With Eric Singerhttp://www.roadrunnerrecords.co.uk
Next up in the Getting To Know You series we sit down with Eric from rock legends KISS. What a great guy he was!!
What were you doing when we interupted you to do this?
I was eating in the other room actually some … chicken quesadilla, with my shoes off, relaxing.
Date of Birth?
May 12th
Where did you go to high school?
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I went to High School on the east side of Cleveland. At that time it was in the Seventies and I was lucky to grow up in a cool time of music and culturally, at least in America. It was a typical mid western town but Cleveland’s a real rock n roll city its where the rock n roll fame is at. It was a great place, very open minded- I mean as regards to music (not so much culturally with people), but when it comes to music people just really loved rock n roll there, always have and what we looked forward to was buying records every week or going to a show. I saw so many great concerts in my formative years as a kid so I’m glad I grew up there. It was a great place to grow up, no doubt about it.
What was the first instrument you ever played?
I think I tried playing piano in like the second grade or something for a short time but I gravitated towards drums, even though I love guitar and always have been influenced by mostly guitar based music. I guess I liked hitting things! My mom told me that typical drummer story- that I liked to the hit pots and pans you know when I was a little kid?! She’d pull them out of the cupboard and with the wooden spoons and all that. Once I discovered bands like Led Zeppelin and that in like 1969, that was it, I was hooked!
What was the first band you guys ever played in and what did you guys sound like?
I had a band in sixth grade- I can remember everybody in the band and we called ourselves ‘The Axe’ I have no idea why. We actually had two drummers because another friend of mine also played drums so we ended up taking turns playing. And I do remember playing for the school classroom and in sixth grade- we played Hey Jude by the Beatles and I remember being scared to death!
Favourite food?
Anything Thai
Beverage of choice?
Sparkling water
What’s your biggest peeve on the road?
Just not being able to sleep sometimes- imsomnia
Track of the moment?
Beatles- I’ve been listening to those remastered, reissued Beatles records...
Movie of the moment?
The last one I saw that I really liked was ‘The Watchmen’. That was killer I thought
When you look back on your career thus far, what’s the most prominent moment?
Well in some ways it’s still making them. I still look at it this way- the fact that I’ve been able to make a living as a musician; that in itself to me is the most prominent thing, rather than singling out any particular moment or any band or any person I worked with (because I’ve gotten to play with some great musicians and some cool situations and great people). I just remember I started off as a kid, not unlike a lot of other kids that had posters on the walls of bands saying, “I wanna do that. Some day I wish I could do that" and the fact that I’ve got to do that and still do that- that to me, that’s big for me. So to me the story’s kinda been written every day, in a way.
