We recently connected with Eric Hancock and have shared our conversation below.
Eric , so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I take guitar lessons every week, which includes the study of other and different guitar styles than my own. Back in the day, I only did original music – while this is very rewarding, you are in a bit of a bubble when you write all your own music. No one ever wrote a guitar part they couldn’t play themselves, but when you learn other styles and parts you WILL encounter things that you can’t play (yet!).
Learning begats learning, and the more I learn the more I realize how much I DON”T know! PLus, the more you know the more your musical “vocabulary” increases, and the more you start playing things that sound a little different. To me the essence of music is creation – and the more you know about theory and technique the more you can create!
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
The Reverb Cartel – Classic Rock Review – is a band that performs cool music, mostly from the 70’s including Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, The Beatles, David Bowie, Santana, The Bee Gees, Prince, Motown, Stevie Wonder, Dwight Yoakam, Chris Stapleton, The Temptations, Elton John, John Mellencamp, The Spinners, Foo Fighters, Seal, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Brooks and Dunn and many others.
We tend to choose songs that people have heard before but not always the biggest hits – we like to play a few songs off the beaten path and we definitely like to put our own spin on the music we play. We endeavor to play these songs not necessarily EXACTLY like the record; we prefer to sound like The Reverb Cartel playing each song!
We are a 4-piece band, including Robbie Espinor on bass guitar and vocals, Greg Sherman on drums and percussion, Matthew Day singing lead and playing rhythm guitar, and yours truly on lead guitar and back-up vocals.
We play all over Houston and surrounding areas, including Kemah, Texas City, Conroe, Katy, Round top antique festival, City of Sugarland, Bellaire (Party in the Pavilion), Austin, Caps Supper Club in Houston and many others. We play private and corporate parties as well.
We recently launched our website – thereverbcartel.com
Another thing worth mentioning is that we work hard at getting the music right! We rehearse every week, with a commitment to excellence. We won’t play anything that we can’t knock people out with, and we take a lot of pride in our musicianship! All of us have played from a young age, and we love music and especially playing it together!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I guess the first thing would be desire, coupled with a somewhat fearless mentality to go for it. I left my hometown in Springfield (actually Willard) Missouri when I was 21 years old – left my family and everyone I knew to move to Houston Texas with the band I was in. The hardest part was moving away from my family!
Right before I left, I got some advice from my dad that I will never forget. He said to keep my health and finances a priority above all else. He said if I had to move back home due to a problem with either of those things, I would never know and never find out if I could make it! He also told me “don’t plan on calling us for money!” (My mom whispered “unless you really really need it”:) That was some good advice and even some tough love, but my folks have been a guiding force in my life to this very day. They’ve since moved to Texas and they STILL come out and see me play! They supported my pursuit of my dreams from the beginning – and not all or even a lot of musicians have that support from their parents. I can’t thank them enough for that.
The 3rd thing is just a pure joy for creating and playing music. For me, there is nothing else that exactly compares; it is really a magical and special thing for me. When we were younger we all wanted to play stadiums and big concert halls, of course, but now that I’m past that I’ve realized that doesn’t really matter so much. When you play music to a room full of people – whether it is 10 people, 100 or 500 people – and they’re into it, moved by it, the joy and magic and the energy goes right into them – and you own the room – you’ve reached the top! It becomes a reciprocal thing, between you and the audience – like a shared magic! And this hasn’t changed since musicians played music for people from the beginning of time.
My advice for people early in their journey is to believe in your destination and stay true to your vision. Endeavor to persevere. Dedicate yourself to your craft – you have to keep getting better at it, always. Just like in life if you stop learning you stop living – you have to keep wanting to get better. Musicians are like golfers, in a way – you never really master it, you never have a perfect performance – but you revel in the joys along the way, celebrate the good and work to improve the rest.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
This is an easy one for me, I have to improve on the areas I’m not as strong in. When I was younger, we only played and wrote our own music. While that has its own unique attraction and excitement, it’s easy to play (and stay) within your own sort of bubble, as far as style and/or limitations. That’s good and bad! It’s paramount to develop your own style of playing, you want to sound like YOU – that’s a great thing! But you have to get out of your comfort zone to improve.
You can really grow as a player when you learn OTHER players! These other folks have put countless hours into what they do, and from a whole different perspective than you. The Reverb Cartel is the first “cover band” I’ve ever played in, and now I’m learning (and playing) Stevie Ray Vaughn, Carlos Santana, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Andy Summers (the Police), Prince, The Beatles – even country players! We picked a Stevie Ray Song (Crossfire) – and it took me a MONTH to get it down, and I still don’t play it like him (but I’m working at it:))
Contact Info:
- Website:thereverbcartel.com
- Instagram: #thereverbcartel
- Facebook: The Reverb Cartel – Classic rock review
- Youtube: The Reverb Cartel
