Eric Martin - Pure (2002) [Japanese Edition]

Eric Martin started his career singing at the end of the 70’s for a San Francisco band called 415. With 415, Eric played hundreds of shows opening for established act like Billy Squire, Hall & Oats, Journey, ZZ Top and Foreigner to name a few. 415 was signed to Elektra/Asylum records and “Sucker for a pretty face” was released after a name change to the Eric Martin Band (EMB). The band parted ways after returning from a 1984-85 ZZ Top tour. After the break up, Eric continued to belt out songs and in 1985 and 1987 released “Eric Martin” and “I’m only fooling myself” solo efforts, which are lathered with Eric’s signature soulful voice and candid lyrics. In 1988-89, Eric would team up with Billy Sheehan, Pat Torpey and Paul Gilbert to form Mr. Big. They would enjoy enormous success with the release of 6 studio albums, numerous hit singles and 6 top-selling live cd’s. All combined, worldwide sales top the 7 million mark. Eric’s third solo album, “Somewhere in the middle” was written during the two-year hiatus from Mr. Big and released in 1998 in Asia and Europe. During the summer of 2001, Eric and the rest of the Mr. Big guys released their last effort, “Actual Size.”
In between promoting and preparing for Mr. Big’s 2002 “Farewell Tour”, Eric continued to record songs for his fourth solo cd. He promised a return to his “rawk roots” and he definitely did so with the album, “I’m Goin’ Sane” which gathered excellent critics and was released in Asia, Europe and The US in late 2002. After the success of a Japan tour, a European “Gods Festival” and a 23 city US tour, Eric decided to go back into the studio to record “Pure,” a EP that covers his hits in an unplugged and stripped acoustic form.
In early 2004 brought Eric back into the studio to record “Destroy All Monsters” which would be released in Japan, Europe, The US and the most recent, South America. The album sound is something Eric calls “Distorted Pop” with a focus on his rock roots.
That same year Eric was unable to promote the album as much as he wanted due to a call from the biggest guitar star in Japan, Tak Matsumoto. Tak’s band, B’z have sold over 80 million records and held onto success for over 12 years. Tak decided to put together a rock band with his favorite players, this would include Eric on vocals, Jack Blades (Night Ranger/Damn Yankees) on bass and Chris Frasier (Steve Vai/Edgar Winter/Eddie Money) and of course Tak on guitar. They spent four months writing and recording an album in Los Angeles, did a 10-day promotional tour and followed with a Platinum album and a 20 city sold out tour ending in Japan’s infamous 15,000-seat arena, Budokan.

Currently, Eric has several portions on his plate; he recently wrote and recorded the theme song for the hit pay per view television show, “Pride FC” which is a major ultimate fighting program. The song, “The Last Man Standing” debuted New Year’s Eve 2006 on pay per view to millions of viewers. Eric also wrote and recorded a song for guitar legend, Ronnie Montrose’s new cd, 10x10, due out this year. Eric sings along 9 other singers including Sammy Hagar, Edgar Winter, Davey Pattison and Mark Farner. The 10x10 album sparked interest in Eric’s vocal performance and he was asked to sing the classic song, “Guitar Man” with Ronnie Montrose, Danny Carmasi and Ricky Phillips to take to the Sundance film festival.

Eric Martin is still alive and kicking, performing regularly in the United States and Japan with a scheduled tour of South America this April. Eric’s new band line up drummer Matt Isola, bassist Mark Chole and Mark Holley on guitar. Eric is married to his sometime drummer Denise, and is the father of twin sons. He is currently working on a new album for your rocking pleasure.

~ cdbaby