Eric Matthews was born in Compton, California-USA. The year was 1969 and Compton was on its way to becoming a gangland. Eric's parents were eager to leave and the promise of Oregon's north was too much to deny. The family began establishing itself rather nicely as the land was full of beauty and the promise good times, better perhaps than could be had under the crushing sun and weight of a life in the big dirty city, that's how Eric sees it.

As a child Eric showed the usual signs of a music lover. The dancing, the singing, and the carrying on when a record was good enough or loud enough were all signs. The Beatles, Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Cream, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, that whole damned era became the soundtrack of Eric's youth. Along the way Eric got a younger brother in the form of one Wes Matthews (Cardinal, Eric Matthews). Together they explored all of this music and became allies of sorts. Wes became very accomplished at various instruments and eventually performed many times on Eric's various recording projects. As these early years moved along, Eric also began noticing more studiously the spare bits of symphonic and jazz records mixed into his parent's record stack. Rimsky-Korsakov, Miles Davis, Moussorgsky, Mancini, and others began to expand the inner ear of young Eric.

"Star Wars"! Eric is 8 or 9 years old and in line like all the other kids in America. Yes, he is wowed by the spectacle of it all but more than the movie, the action figures, and the devotion that that film encouraged, was a film score composed by a then middle-aged John Williams. Eric became devoted instead to this brave film music and enjoyed the gatefold LP-set that mom and dad bought for the house. For Eric, this modern sample of the big symphonic sound became a guiding force for the next decade of his life. Already in love with the sound of the orchestra, Eric became obsessed by the notion of becoming a conductor of orchestral music, or some sort of something in the world that had begun to unfold through this new popular moment of the big orchestra. The investigation of three centuries worth of composers then began. With this, Eric began buying records and tapes of all the standard symphonic literature. Tchikovsky, Katchaturian, Mahler, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Debussy, Bach, Hindemith, and countless others became the nightly bedtime classroom. Sleeping to the giants.

And so comes the fifth grade and that day to choose an instrument for band class. Eric chooses the trumpet largely due to his love of Miles Davis but more because of the orchestrations of Henry Mancini and John Williams. Eric very quickly began making beautiful sounds with this foreign metal tube stuck to his face. By the eighth grade Eric was performing solos in big halls and receiving letters of interest from many of the nation's better known universities with music programs with offers of scholarships and other honors. As a young trumpeter, Eric was well on his way.

It's 1983 and time for high school and Eric is more focused than ever. Someday Eric wished to play for one of the great American orchestras (Boston, Chicago, or New York). Next to that dream Eric kept his connection to jazz and improvising alive and in the back of his mind as at the very least, a side career. Focused but given to distraction, Eric spends most of his energy studying music and performing at solo contests (winning mostly). Besides the cute girls that needed his affections, there was this new thing hitting underground radio called new wave music. It started with Tones on Tail, The Church, Depeche Mode, Kissing the Pink, The Damned, Echo and The Bunnymen, U2, The Smiths and so many more… Most of these bands sound like obvious house hold names now, but in the United States during the early 80's it took effort, luck, and research to know anything about what they were doing. Eric and his inner group of peers were among that early group of enthusiasts who first knew the power of what was going on overseas.

There were mainstream bands at that time making good pop music but something about this new (often dark), more exotic sound really hit Eric hard and had him singing in new ways. It was in this period that Eric made friends with fellow classmate, John McEntire. John was a gifted percussionist in many of the ensembles that Eric was also performing at school, but as time passed John and Eric became closer because of their shared love of the musical counterculture brewing. By 1985 both boys started to play professionally in the active nighttime Portland music scene. For Eric this meant playing in the Portland Youth Philharmonic, small jazz groups, as well as the occasional work as studio session player. For John this meant playing drums for a punk band called The Oily Bloodmen. The "Bloodmen" were one of the standout rock/punk bands in Portland at that time and though Eric was not a fan of the music there was a draw to the scene and the sheen of "being in a rock band". It also happened that the guys of John's new click were not only record collectors but also devoted to the sound of all the great English bands that Eric had developed a taste for. On stage it was all banging and shouting, but back at the band house it was the gentle sipping of beer, good conversation, but with Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure spinning on the turntable in the background. For Eric this was a kind of heaven.

And although Eric's focus was somewhat fractured it was never so much that he left the initial idea of playing trumpet in the most vigorous way. High school is over and Eric chose not to leave the west coast and committed to attend the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. There, he studied with a great group of musical scholars and peers but soon became distracted again by what was happening in the British music world. Still Eric remained playing in the orchestras, doing session work, and various other trumpet playing ways of paying the rent. In the end Eric says that this was a grand time.

After two years at conservatory Eric went home to Oregon for the summer but decided to not return to school. A high school girl friend was still there and this was good. While she was preparing to leave for university in Boston, Eric worked in a pizza shop while playing odd gigs and getting in touch with old friends in his spare time. The trumpet dreams were not over but formal education was done-for in Eric's mind. Wanting to join his girlfriend in Boston Eric made arrangements to study trumpet with the great Timothy Morrison at the New England Conservatory of Music. Timothy was principal trumpet player for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and heard widely as John Williams' solo trumpet player in so many of the loved films of the late eighties through the year 2000 or so. The plan still looked good for Eric and in 1989 Eric moved off to Boston with a few months rent money in hand along with a bag of trumpets.

Soon after arriving in Boston, Eric got a tape in the mail from his younger brother Wes. On this tape was a collection of compositions that he had recently made. Most of it was instrumental but there was some singing and actual songs well recorded and sounding amazing, brave, and mostly, never done before. This tape became Eric's ticket out from under a lifetime of dreams that were never quite enough. All along he wanted to be the composer or the conductor, something more than just player. It wasn't a big enough seat for him and he longed to know just what it was he should be doing. This tape, combined with a lifetime of loving pop music laid out perfectly just what to do. Eric's younger brother had played in bands but this was the first evidence that one of "us" might be capable of doing something new and great. It was then that Eric put the trumpets away. Not for good but for better.

Inspired and renewed, Eric left behind his school days and entered the Boston work force in order to save up enough money to buy a guitar, a microphone, a keyboard, and a four track recorder. After just six months at the print shop Eric had his little studio and began discovering his creative insides. In early 1991 Eric composed an instrumental film score for an independent film called "Cell 33". This score highlighted the very kind of thing that Eric was getting good at; short-form orchestral landscapes high in tonal tension, strong melodies, and pretty harmonies.

It was in this period of 1990-91 that Eric also began singing onto tape for the first time. It was rough sounding, and at times quite hopeless but pressing on, it was not long before the vocal skill started to match up with a growing comfort in crafting songs.

In late 1990 Eric discovered an upstairs neighbor named Bob Fay. Like Eric, Bob was a record collector but with a wider knowledge and musical pallet. Through most of 1990 Eric and Bob became close turning each other onto the music they loved most. Bob was a drummer playing in Boston bands and making indie-records with many of them. He also was very connected to a host of local artists also making records and in some cases some very good music. The best example of this was Bob's good friend Lou Barlow. Lou had just launched Sebadoh under the Homestead Records label and Eric was really inspired by the songs of Mr. Barlow. In 1991 Bob Fay left for a tour with Sebadoh (as drummer) and Eric went back to working alone on his songs. Eventually Bob, Lou, and Eric formed a trio called Beltbuckle. In late 1991 Beltbuckle recorded a four song EP for the Sonic Bubblegum label where for the first time Eric was in the studio playing bass, drums, and singing. Five or six printings later of that Beltbuckle record and Sebadoh began getting requests and performing Beltbuckle songs while on the road with Pavement. Eric's first little bit of success.

The summer of 1992 Bob Fay met Richard Davies (of The Moles) at a rock show in Cambridge. Bob had played The Moles for Eric but he did not connect to or "get it" at all. Eric was invited to jam sessions and to meet Richard but Eric was more focused on just working on his own songs. Eventually, Eric gave in and agreed to meet Richard. The three ended up hitting it off in a big way playing a new song of Richard's, "The Last Poem". It was largely about Richard and Eric singing together, this was the charm of the thing on that first day. That day Cardinal was born and by the fall of 1992 the boys were in the studio recording "the Toy Bell E.P." for Flydaddy Records. This EP was a warm up to a full-length record agreed to be made later for Flydaddy.

In the summer of 1993 Eric and his girlfriend decided to move back to Oregon. Once home Eric started making plans for Richard to bring his songs to Portland where they, along with some of Eric's homeland peers (Tony Lash, Steven Hanford, and Wes Matthews) would join together to make the one and only (but classic) Cardinal record. Cardinal took the music world by storm in 1994 gaining critical praise from all corners of the western world. In a personal victory both Flydaddy and Dedicated Records (the UK label) selected an Eric Matthews song; "Dream Figure" as choice for the first Cardinal single. In America this was the radio splash that the album needed to initially get noticed. In the UK the single was "single of the week" in both Melody Maker and NME. The point of Cardinal was the songs of Richard Davies and they got plenty of attention too but it was Eric that garnered much more attention than planned. For Eric the great joy of this record was not the success of "Dream Figure", instead he credits this album and Richard's songs as the "best of all first opportunities a young arranger could have had in cutting his teeth in the writing of orchestrations". To Eric (and many of the music critics) his contribution was best observed in his input as an instrumentalist, singer, and in capacity of (on site) musical director.

It didn't take long for the phone to start ringing and in the summer of 1994 Eric began considering recording contracts from various labels. In 1995 his first solo record "It's Heavy in Here" was released on Sub Pop Records. For this record Eric recruited friend and peer Jason Falkner to sit in on various instruments for the late 1994 sessions. Jason's contributions were felt throughout the record but nowhere stronger than on the hit single "Fanfare". On "Fanfare" Jason took a solid Eric Matthews song (much in the tradition of "Dream Figure") up several notches by adding layers of heavy guitar melodies. The rest of the album featured sprinkles of Jason Falkner but mostly relied on the arrangement of orchestral instrumentation against a largely traditional configuration of guitars, pianos, bass, and drums. Here, Eric further laid out his plan, his vision for what record making could be under his hand.

Puffed up and ready, Eric took on the challenge of making another record for Sub Pop. "The Lateness of the Hour" was released in 1997 and it too brought much acclaim. No radio hit but the fans were in place and it was by most measures a brilliant success.

In 1997 Eric married his long-time girlfriend and began looking toward a future of making more records as he still owed Sub Pop two more. In his usual fashion Eric wrote and recorded demos of 12 new songs and handed them into the record company. It was 1998 and Sub Pop was in a period of upheaval. Huge staff changes, a break in it's relationship to Warner Brothers Records, and an accompanying general shift in the artistic direction of the label all left Eric without a recording contract for the first time in seven years. Enough momentum was achieved on previous albums that Eric was not overly concerned about this change and looked forward to free agency. This lack of concern proved to be a mistake.

The whole of the record industry was in a period of change as major moves were initiated in the way that record companies did business. The bean counters became more powerful and all across the industry belts were tightened, thus restricting the kind of chance that an artist like Eric Matthews had in the marketplace of that time. There was also a clear shifting in music tastes as bands like Korn, Limp Biskit, and Kid Rock became completely dominant both at radio as well as at MTV. MTV dropped most of it's music programming as well as the the late night shows that gave Eric his first TV exposure with "Fanfare" back in 1995. The whole ball game was changing and though Eric was in discussion with nearly all of the major labels, none of them ever stepped all the way up to the plate. The situation dragged on for another five years and Eric kept stacking up songs, waiting for his chance.

In this long period away from the spotlight Eric took on the vocation of session musician, arranger, orchestrator, conductor of string sessions, and even guest vocalist on many well known artist's records. In late 1999 Eric began an association with Andy Chase, a New York City recording artist (Ivy) and record producer. This association began with Andy hiring Eric to work with a new band from Paris named Tahiti 80. On this Tahiti 80 debut "Puzzle", Eric wrote and performed horn arrangements on several songs. From there Andy Chase and Eric Matthews continued to work together on albums such as on Ivy's "Long Distance" and perhaps most notably, Brookville's "Wonder Nothing". Brookville is an Andy Chase brainchild that combines the talents of people like James Iha, Jean-Pierre Ensuque, and Eric Matthews. On the Brookville debut "Wonder Nothing" Eric displayed his many talents while performing horns, piano, guitars, and vocals. More Brookville releases are planed for the future.

The list of Eric's side-man exploits goes on with names like The Dandy Warhols, James Angell, Man of the Year, Spookey Ruben, Volovan, Chocolat, and others. Eric intends on further expanding his list of guest appearances in the future. As he puts it, "one of the things I am best at is making other people's good music even better".

In 2003 Eric and his wife purchased a church built in 1909 in which to live. Situated at the edge of the Mt. Hood National Forest, in a town with a population of only 2,400 people, life at the edge of the mountains is just what Eric needed. The common question back in 1995 and 97 was: "Eric, why don't you move to New York or LA?, and why stay in Portland when you could be…?" Eric eventually came up with a pretty far-out answer, an answer that puts to rest finally the notion that Eric is interested having a career outside of the conditions he sets for himself.

Eric now splits his time between these music activities and his new habbit, working on "this old house". A handyman in training and minding his own business, a funny thing happened in September of 2004. Empyrean Records looked Eric up and asked him what was going on with EM's solo career? Eric didn't get his hopes up as this had happened so many times before with labels that would have been perfect. This time was different though and Empyrean proved serious enough and once again, Eric found him self under contract to make another record. Eric's newest album "Six Kinds of Passion Looking For an Exit" will be released on Feb. 15th, 2005.

A happy ending?. Or is it just the start of something far greater than we could have hoped for? The story continues…