Soulful heartache. You don’t just relate to words when it comes to music. It’s only when you hear it that the message sticks to you and grabs at you tight. You want to hear the pain, the frustration… the regret. Erick Willis carefully controls each note, to bring you soulful heartache. His roots are country true. At four years old he was asked to sing solos in his grandma’s church choir. Briefly after, his mother got him voice lessons and scheduled him in Opry Shows in Wichita Falls. He was a regular at the Wichita Theatre for The Texas Gold Country Music Show, where he got his vocal chops by covering Brooks and Dunn, John Michael Montgomery and tons of other great 90’s country that molded his sound early on. Most of the time he would play with tracks or a house band until he took a guitar class in high school that would eventually help him create music on his own.
Erick started noticing the Texas Music scene in his high school years and it led him to play the open mics at the Iron Horse Pub and Outskirts. He later toured state-wide, all the while recording music and gaining ground. With each EP(Ep Summer ‘12/EP Spring ‘13), he gathered recognition and with each album(Please/ Floodgate) he’d find better venues. A mountain he’s climbed with steadiness and recently reached a triumphant conquest…. performing at the famed Billy Bob’s, in Ft. Worth, TX. A night full of DFW fans and his hometown gang who all cheered for him and his latest success.
Willis just wrapped up a Christmas EP you can get in December and will be working on new music in 2017. He’ll be hand-picking a producer that will help him sort through 25-30 songs to get the right pick of the litter. “ I want to go in there with as much material ready as possible and then narrow it down to whatever I think makes a good cohesive album.” He’s hoping to expand his sound with this effort by incorporating horns and possibly strings.
His back beat, Randy Burch (drums) and Eric Dean Martin (bass), have been with him for some time but he’s added on Mark McDuffie on lead guitar and, at certain shows, some keys from Lubbock’s own Jerry Serrano. He’s taking this talented crew across the state in 2017 with shows in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia.
James Cook
