Eric Herman and the Invisible Band Combine Shel Silverstein and the Beatles
By Kent Olmstead

As a crowd of several hundred waits anxiously for the show by a notable LDS artist, the performer works through some last minute details.  A seasoned touring professional, each concert brings its own set of challenges in connecting with a demanding audience.

But just who is this performer? And who has come for the show? Could it be Michael McLean?  Julie deAzevedo?  Kenneth Cope? Or maybe someone focused on a younger audience.  Hmmm?  Maybe the guys from Jericho Road or Jennie Jordan Frogley? 

Closer, but you’d actually need to be thinking of a much younger audience to guess this one correctly ― as in eight- or even five-year-olds.  Huh?  Give up?  Performing regularly at schools, libraries, festivals and concert events across the country, it’s time you were introduced to Eric Herman and the Invisible Band.

Eric performing at a library in Springville, Utah.

Kent: Eric and Roseann, I hear your new album, Snow Day, is on the Grammy ballot.  How did that come about?

Roseann: It's actually pretty easy to get on the ballot.  Any voting member can submit your album.  But winning or getting one of the five nominations is another story. 

Eric: Right.  And I sure don't expect that this time.  But to extend the old cliché that "it's nice just to be nominated," I'll say that it's nice just to be on the ballot. 

Roseann: We're planning to do more widespread publicity for the next few releases, so I think the chances of getting a nomination for one of those will be a lot better.

Eric: And we'll send better quality chocolate out to the voters next time. (laughs)

Kent: Your songs are receiving radio air play across the country.  Where can listeners tune in?

Eric: Perhaps most notably, songs from Snow Day! are being played on XM Radio's XM Kids channel (#116), so if you're an XM subscriber you can request my songs on there. There are also a number of kids' radio shows on various stations around the country.  I'll be doing a guest DJ set on the Massachusetts-based "Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child" show soon, and I've been thinking of producing my own "Cool Tunes for Kids" radio show at some point.

Kent: Eric, you are a convert to the Church. Can you share that story?

Eric: I had an amorphous Christian faith for quite a while as a teenager, but didn't really know what to do with that.  I had been studying Bible prophecy and saw some of the Church's TV commercials, so I had some vague curiosity in the idea of a church that acknowledged that these were the "latter days."  And then a friend of mine told me that some Mormons came to his door and he chased them away, and I thought, hmm, Mormons ― isn't that the Latter-day Saints thing?  And I decided that when they came to my door I would listen to them.  Sure enough, a few weeks later the doorbell rang, and when the elders introduced themselves I said something like, "Oh, great! I was hoping you'd come by!" (laughs)  It was the golden convert kind of thing, I guess.  As it turned out, the Church was everything I had really been looking for, and then some.

Kent: As a Buffalo, NY native, how did you end up in the Northwest?

Eric: (in a Liverpudlian accent) Turned right at Nevada. (laughs) I had been doing the kids' music thing for about a year, and I was starting to get a lot of offers to perform for schools and other events around Western New York, but I still had a day job that made that difficult.  I knew I wanted to do this full-time but had to make the break somewhere. 

Roseann: My parents were going on a mission to Fiji and needed someone to house-sit for them, so we sold our house and moved out here (Richland, Washington) to get things started without having to worry about mortgage or rent payments for a while.  And it definitely took a few months of making contacts and letting people out here know that Eric was available before the ball was rolling, so it turned out to be a great opportunity.

Eric: Here I must acknowledge that I have the best "music wife" in the world.  How many musicians’ wives would urge them to quit their day job ― with the regular paycheck and 401K and health insurance and all that ― and move their family across the country so they can pursue a music career full-time?  It was something I was very reticent about, but she had enough faith for both of us and I couldn't be more grateful for following her encouragement.  I'm much happier doing what I'm doing now than when I was pushing paperwork around at my last job.  Actually, there's still some paperwork pushing, but it's related to music and performance contracts, so I don't mind that as much. (laughs)

Kent: Your real name is Eric Endres.  So how did you become Eric Herman?

Eric: Turned right at Nevada.  No wait, that doesn't work for that question. (laughs) Well, when we first decided I was going to start doing kids' music, we wondered if "Eric Endres" was really a memorable enough name. 

Roseann: It's hard enough for adults to pronounce and spell right. 

Eric: So we thought of some different options like "Uncle Eric" or "That Bearded Kids' Musician," and then we realized that my middle name might work as a last name.  And "Herman" is a cuter sounding name, eh?  So Eric Herman is still my real name, in a way.  We also wanted to distinguish what I'd be doing for kids from other music I had produced.

Roseann: Not that there was anything bad about the other stuff, but it just wasn't intended for a kid audience.

Kent: Your first children’s album, Kid in the Mirror, seemed to announce your decision to pursue this genre seriously.  Was there any singular epiphany that set you on this course?  And did it involve looking in the mirror?

Eric: Roseann had suggested I do some music for kids very early on in our marriage, but I wasn't interested at the time.  Then in 2002 there was a "synchronous" kind of occurrence over a few weeks when several different people suggested the same thing.  And so...

Roseann:  And no, I didn't put them up to it! (laughs)

Eric: My main hesitation was that I didn't want to do the typical kind of trite, sing-songy tunes that a lot of people associated with the term "children's music."  I mean, I can appreciate Barney and that kind of stuff. I think kids even need that type of thing as part of their musical palette, but I didn't really want to create that myself.  But I kept an open mind and scoured the Buffalo libraries for kids' CDs.  As it turned out, what I thought was the "typical" kind of kids' music wasn't really all that typical.  There was actually quite a variety of great music for kids, with many different sounds and styles.  Once I realized I could do a wide variety of music that could still work for kids, then I was very excited to get to work on that and see what I could do within the genre.

Kent: In the past year or two, there seems to be an emerging popularity of something called "Kindie Rock" ― or independent rock music for kids.  Where do you find yourself within that movement?

Roseann: Well, we started doing kids' music ahead of the current wave by a year or two.

Eric: Yeah, there's almost a proliferation of it now, and I think that to some extent the "kid" is becoming less prevalent in kids' music.  There's so much focus on creating music for kids that the parents will also like that it's almost become cliché to market kids' music that way.

Roseann: I think that some people are creating music that is really just adult music that happens to have some vaguely kid-related lyrics and calling it "kids' music," with that market in mind. 

Eric: There's nothing wrong with kids' music that parents also like, and I'm glad that a lot of parents like my kids' music, but I think that now we're almost headed a little bit away from worrying so much about what the parents think and trying to first think of the kids.

Eric performing at a library in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Roseann: Won't somebody please think of the children?! (laughs) We sometimes have to work hard to find the balance of what is something we think is good music and what is also something that will be good music for kids.

Eric: Exactly.  So in one sense I find myself very glad to be a part of the current movement, but also doing my own thing on the outskirts of it and not really trying to pay too much mind to that.  And in a comparative sense, there's a lot of folky and more serious kinds of kids' music coming out now, some of which is terrific, but I would probably be more of the colorfully loud jester in that courtyard.   I'm definitely focused more on the fun and creative rock 'n' roll side of the kids' music spectrum.

Roseann:  A reviewer recently said that Eric's kids' music was like a mixture of Shel Silverstein and The Beatles, and I thought that was a cool description.

Kent: How did this thing of recruiting invisible band members emerge?

Roseann: We discovered The Invisible Band when they were playing behind a broken jukebox at a pizza place in Buffalo.

Eric: And they've been a great group to work with. But I think they actually benefited more from us discovering them, because that pizza joint thing was a terrible gig.

Kent: What are some of the projects you're working on now?

Eric: I'm trying to follow the example of the Lord of the Rings film productions and working on my next three CDs simultaneously while we have more time at home over the winter.  I'm also trying to follow the example of the Lord of the Rings film productions by having them all be hugely successful. (laughs)  The first thing we're finishing up now will be a compilation of my mellower/lullaby songs for a CD called Snail's Pace.

Roseann: We've had some requests from parents whose kids love Eric's upbeat and funny songs but who also appreciate his slower songs and thought we should make a collection of those.  It's not really going to be a lullaby album, per se, but meant more for quiet time or for winding down.

Eric: And we didn't want that to just be a "clip show" kind of thing, so we're adding some new tracks, one of which is a funny slow jazz song called "Scat Cat," starring the incredible Sam Payne as the cat.

Roseann: And particularly for LDS bookstores, we'll be offering Snail's Pace as a special bundle with an exclusive compilation of Eric's upbeat and fun songs, so families can have the best of both sides.

Eric: We're also working on the next new Eric Herman and the Invisible Band album as well as another CD for kids which will be different from anything else I've released.  I can't elaborate more on that one just yet.  Snail's Pace should be released next spring and the others sometime later in 2007 or 2008.

Roseann: We're also looking for more investors and funding for some kids' TV shows we're developing, and working on some video projects.

Eric: And of course booking shows for 2007 and beyond.  We're going to get back to places like Utah and Idaho and Seattle again, but we're also hoping to hit some other areas outside of the Northwest.

Kent: What's it like to tour with your family in a motorhome?

Eric: Oh, we really love our '"housebus,'" as Becca (their 4 year-old daughter) calls it.

Roseann: When we were first about to go out touring we bought a minivan, which we thought was great.  But then we realized that we'd have to get hotels every night, and buy fast food all the time, and there was no place for the girls to have naps.

Eric: Or for me to have naps! (laughs) Yeah, it wasn't more than a week or two of that before we kind of slapped our foreheads and said, "We should have bought an RV!"  Luckily, we got a full trade-in for what we'd paid on the minivan. 

Roseann: We originally thought we would work our way up to that point, but it became obvious that the minivan wouldn't work at all with the whole family, and since it was never our intention to have just one touring family member, and kids without their daddy around, we knew we needed the RV right away.

Eric: It's not very practical on gas, but it actually evens out ― or better ― when you add in the cost of hotels and eating out all the time.  It can be a little cramped in there, especially when we have band practices. (Invisible Pete's tuba alone takes up a lot of space.) But we enjoy it and make the most of the space we have.

Roseann: It's nice to have a place that feels like a home, no matter where you are.

How do you and Roseann combine talents to accomplish everything that you do?

Roseann: It's kind of like the Wonder Twins ― with the rings and all. (laughs)

Eric: Um, we're not kidding. (laughs) Sometimes we collaborate very closely on songs right from the start, but a lot of times it's a matter of me coming up with something and recording a demo and then playing it for Roseann to see what her reaction is.  Sometimes she'll love it as it is, but often she'll have some good suggestions for improving things.  Sometimes I don't realize that they are good suggestions and I hem and haw until I actually try them and realize how brilliant they are.

Roseann: Good answer. (laughs)

Eric: Roseann has a great ear and also brings some cool ideas to the production.

Roseann: Sometimes it's hard for me to articulate what I want, and it's more a matter of a feeling I have. For example, on the song "Ants in the Lunchroom" (from Monkey Business) I kept telling Eric that the song was just too heavy sounding.  But it wasn't even necessarily about the distorted guitar or the rhythm of the song ― it just felt too heavy in general.

Eric: It's kind of a Jethro Tull meets Rush kind of sound, and I always liked it along with the cartoonish lyrics about a regiment of ants ransacking a school cafeteria.  I had a sense that it worked, but Roseann had a strong sense that it didn't, so we butted heads for a while on that one.

Roseann: And then you finally had the idea to add the funny ant voices to the song and that lightened it all up and made everything work for me.

Eric: And it worked better for me, too.  It made the music fit more in the cartoonish sense that it was intended. So we're not so much about compromising to find something that we can both accept, but more about pushing each other to find something that works better overall.

Kent: You have a very energetic performance style and involve the audience a lot in your shows.  How do you come up with your stage show ideas and do they change depending on whether you're doing a concert or a school assembly?

 Eric: My school assemblies aren't that much different from my other shows, in terms of the goal being that they are a lot of fun and very participatory.  The assemblies just have more talking or "message" segments in between the songs, whereas my regular shows don't really have any message, other than having a great time.

Roseann: And kids need to be interested, first and foremost, or the best message will be lost on them. So the assemblies have a lot of the same humor and funny songs as the other concerts.

Eric: A lot of the comedic and participation elements in my shows have been ad libbed at different times. Sometimes there's a joke or idea that will come out in a show, and so if we remember how it went then it might end up being part of the show thereafter. 

Kent: What advice do you have for someone considering writing and performing children's music?

Eric: I can only really speak from my own experience, which might not be the same for anyone else. But probably the most important thing would be to observe what kids respond to and try to create something in your own way that will connect with them.  When I listened to all of those kids' CDs from the Buffalo libraries I picked out a number of songs that I liked and put a set list together for my first few gigs at day cares.  I quickly found out that just because I liked something, that didn't mean the kids would, at least not in a live show.   Merely singing and playing a song doesn't mean that kids will sit there and listen to it.  You have to find ways to elicit participation, or at least set up and perform a song in the right way so that kids will be engaged with it.  The same thing applies, though to a lesser extent, with CDs.  Kids might listen and dance along with good music on a CD, but there still has to be something that connects with them, or they might tune it out pretty quickly and run back to the Gameboy.

Kent: You tour and perform quite a lot.  What are the challenges in coordinating church membership with your touring and performance schedule?

Roseann: I think the most difficult thing was for our bishopric trying to figure out what callings we could do for the few months out of the year when we're in town. So I'm the wintertime hymnbook alphabetizer. (laughs)

Eric: When we're out on the road we just stop at a different ward every week, which is easy enough to do when we're going through Utah or Idaho. Coming from New York where the Church is so small it feels unusual for me to drive through Utah and see ― church building, church building, temple, church building, stake center, church building, temple, all in the same block. (laughs)

Roseann: We've been lucky that our girls are so adaptable.  They make friends wherever they go and always look forward to Primary and Nursery.

Kent: Your video for "The Elephant Song" has become quite popular on YouTube and Google Video, even surpassing videos by kids' music superstars like Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner.  How did you come up with the idea for that song and the video?

Eric: "The Elephant Song," as it turned out to be, was really sort of an accident.  We had watched a PBS documentary about two elephant friends who were separated at a young age to go work in different circuses.  They were reunited late in life and still had an incredible bond with each other.  I was really moved by that and wanted to write an "oh so meaningful" song about those elephants, at least in a metaphorical sense.  I wrote the music pretty quickly, but...

Roseann: But he could never get anywhere with the lyrics.  I kept hearing him playing that music over and over, and so as a joke I started singing, "Elephants. I like elephants."

Eric: I thought, ha ha, very funny. But the way she sang it was kind of cute and catchy, and after a while I found myself singing that, too, but still only as a joke.  And then one day, for reasons I can't quite explain, I added the line, "I like how they swing through trees," and that was that.

Roseann: The video was originally meant to be a very rough demo, which it still is, I suppose.  We wanted to see how it would work if I put some simple Paint program images to the song and strung them together in a video editing program.  We showed it to a couple of friends of ours to see what they thought and they kind of flipped out and started passing it around to their friends, and next thing we knew it was being passed around and showing up on blogs and websites all over the place.

Eric: We've had so many kids and parents contact us and say how much they love that.  It's really nice to get that kind of response, and lately we've seen people coming to the website through the link on Google Video from all over the world.  It's funny to think of kids in places like Africa and Iran and Russia reacting to that song, but it's also really cool to know that it connects with them so well, no matter where they are. 

Roseann: We're planning to do a more polished version of that for an upcoming video release.

Eric: Yes, but I think it has a certain charm as it is, as if a little kid had drawn the pictures, so we definitely don't want to lose that simple quality for the next version.

Kent: Would you like to add anything else?

Eric: I'd like to add one hundred thirty-six and two hundred forty-three.

Roseann: I'd like to add a jacuzzi to our RV.

Eric: I'd like to add our thanks and gratitude to all of our family, friends and fans for their love and support.

http://www.EricHermanMusic.com
- Cool Tunes for Kids -