We were lucky to catch up with Eric Eggleston recently and have shared our conversation below.
Eric, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
That’s a big and tiny question, I find. Purpose for me, first and foremost has always been caring for people around me..checking in, remaining close with my family and certain friends. Knowing and being sensitive to when someone can use a word of encouragement. Empathy can be useful and a curse I suppose.
What became my passion-purpose has always been creating things from nothing.. at first with music and sound then recently, video and film. I don’t think that I found it this purpose, but it did find me. I was exposed to mainstream music at home by my parents at a very young age, probably 4. I always wanted to hear more. I believe I was 5 when I discovered Thriller by Michael Jackson and that really did it for me. Many years later, I would apprentice with the team that made those records.
It wasn’t much later that I started inventing songs and lyrics, they would easily come to me. I didn’t have an iPhone back then to quickly save the idea so I would loop it until it became ingrained.
In brief, I believe that caring and creating are my purpose and I’m doing the best I can.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
In my teens, I started out writing music and playing in bands, releasing albums of original music. We’d perform in clubs and pubs in and around Ottawa, Canada’s capital. We’d later tour as far as the US, Scandinavia and Ireland.
From then, I began collaborating with and producing artists in various genres, striving to improve at the craft or audio production & mixing. My first home studio was where I did the bulk of my work with artists, I named it Johnny Hall Productions. Johnny Hall was a fictional character in a song of the same name.
To better myself, on different occasions, I mentored with Bruce Swedien (recording engineer/mixer for Micheal Jackson) as well as Michael Wagener (Ozzy, Skid Row) Michael Brauer (Coldplay, John Mayer) & super producer David Kahne (Sublime, Paul McCartney. Each of these professionals work in completely different ways and have their own philosophies on how they approach their art, it’s really fascinating. These mentorships were invaluable and were my College/University.
I was often sticking my toe into video and film making (mostly music videos and documentaries) and so a few years ago, I decided to pitch an idea to the Bell network in Canada. It was a 30 min docuseries about creativity, where, in each episode, I would collaborate with a different artist, get to know them and we’d create a new song and fully produce it within a few hours.
Thus was born The Human Crush. The idea was also to get out of the regular studio environment and set up a make shift studio in different and neat locations to see if that would help inspire. We’ve now produced 13 episodes of the Human Crush as well as 6 episodes of a French version titled “La quête sonique.’
They are available to stream on the Bell Network. I will be releasing them shortly on my YouTube channel.
The Human Crush is also the title of my latest solo record.
I’ve recently rebranded Johnny Hall Productions to Eggleston Entertainment, to better represent our full content creation capabilities.
Diving into film work and producing documentaries has been quite the learning curve I’ll say..but a great learning journey that will never end.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Putting yourself out there even if they are in difficult situations. Wether it’s a first gig in a venue that you didn’t feel worthy performing in, you step up your game, make a few mistakes and leave the gig a much better artist and with more confidence. Or taking on a music or video project that requires technical experience that you may not yet have, you jump in and learn from it. It’s scary but it works.
2. Respecting your collaborators. Not everyone comes from a great upbringing. You need to keep it light and make everyone feel welcome, safe.
3. Looking back at your work and figuring out how and where to improve. It’s fun to feel proud about a project, but I believe that one should look ahead as well.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
As a music producer, my thing, is that I don’t have a thing. I enjoy working in most styles, especially if they’re fused with other styles and flavours. But the most important thing for me and what I seek out in potential clients, is originality.
The artist needs to be real with themselves and willing to uncover their true artistic voice of the moment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.egglestonent.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humancrush/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-eggleston-19722320/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBZX8gjw5kwb3193lcoFmQg
Image Credits
Normand Glaude, London Trio Plus, Vincent Girard, Tyler Kealey
