On many nights in the 1990s, as he was trying to forge his career by playing guitar and singing and recording on cassettes nd four-track machines, Eric Earley would find himself at the old La Luna nightclub in Southeast Portland.
Influenced by Elliott Smith, Quasi and The Dandy Warhols among others, Earley said that “whatever show that came through La Luna I would go see.”
Inspired, Earley would go on to form Blitzen Trapper, an experimental and indie folk/country rock band, along with drummer Brian Adrian Koch and others. And 10 studio albums, three live albums, five EPs, 14 singles and 18 music videos later, the Portland-based band now can call itself members of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.
The band will be inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony Saturday, Oct. 12 at Aladdin Theater, along with other music luminaries. Blitzen Trapper was originally supposed to perform, but not all members (Earley included) could make the show.
“It’s really cool,” said Earley, of OMHOF induction. “It’s an honor.
“Having lived in Oregon my whole life and watched the music scene’s ever-changing evolution over many years, it’s so great to be a part of that history and the fabulous sounds generated in this weird, unique corner of the world.”
Being part of Oregon music royalty is a big thing for Earley, whose band can now be mentioned in the same breath as The Dandy Warhols, Quasi and Elliott Smith.
On the Oregon music scene, he said: “It seems like lately, the scene is eclectic, there are all kinds of things going on. Twenty years ago, there was lots of fringe and indie rock. A lot of experimentation has always gone on in Portland; there’s no music industry, really. The bands aren’t trying to get signed, necessarily. There’s a lot more freedom and they do what you want. … We’ve always done all kinds of stuff, experimented with all kinds of stuff.”
Earley grew up in Salem, and he began recording on cassettes and four-track machines in his parent’s garage. By 2000, he had put a band together around his songwriting, first known as Garmonbozia. The name change to Blitzen Trapper happened, inspired by Earley’s seventh-grade girlfriend’s Christmas binder.
A self-titled album came out in 2003 as the band exploded on the music scene. It signed with Sub Pop Records in 2007, and came out with the song “Wild Mountain Nation,” No. 98 on Rolling Stones’ list of the top 100 best songs of 2007. The release of breakthrough album “Furr” was a high point in 2008, and Rolling Stone featured the band in an editorial spread. Concert dates with Fleet Foxes, Wilco and Dawes followed, as did appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk and Coachella festivals.
Recent albums are “Holy Smokes Future Jokes” (2020) and “100’s and 1000’s, Millions of Billions” (2024, Yep Roc Records), the latter a collection of old songs written and recorded by Earley on four-track.
“It sort of epitomizes the Blitzen Trapper sound, there’s quirkiness to it, it spans between folk music and harder, full rock band stuff,” Earley said. The album title was also inspired by Earley’s fascination with Buddhist texts and meditation.
From publicity:
The enthralling 12-track album arrives nearly four years after 2020’s “Holy Smokes Future Jokes,” and sees Blitzen Trapper leaning into their psych rock-washed, classic songwriting roots to create one of the finest works of their career — nearly 20 years in. “This whole project grew out of a box of old four-track tapes from the ’90s that I found recently,” Earley said. “The tapes were full of songs I’d written and recorded back when I was 19 or 20 years old, and the sound and the spirit of those recordings got me excited to start writing music again, to go back to working the way I did when I was first starting out.”
For most of their career Blitzen Trapper consisted of guitarist/vocalist Earley, Erik Menteer (guitar, keyboard), Brian Adrian Koch (drums, vocals), Michael Van Pelt (bass) and Marty Marquis (keyboard, vocals), but currently includes Earley, Koch, Michael Elson (bass and keyboard) and Nathan Vanderpool (guitar). “The band has changed quite a bit. Since COVID, we’ve had different personnel changes,” Earley said. “We don’t tour that much anymore, maybe a month (a year) total. We’ve dialed it back the past 5-6 years. Life changes, we’re getting older, we have families. I take it a year at a time, see what kind of opportunities arise.”
That said, Blitzen Trapper will be doing a Midwest tour in November after doing some shows in July and August.
Earley is often inspired by living in the state of Oregon.
“So much of the music I’ve written over the years has been affected by the environment I grew up in,” he said. “Oregon’s mountainous, dark and cloudy. There’s a sort of weird mystical quality to the woods, and that’s gone into my music in some ways.”
Local News
Comments / 0