On Transience, Eric is joined by friends including acoustic 12-string guitar player Alexander Turnquist, Cheap Trick bassist, Tom Petersson, Amy Rigby on piano and backing vocals, jazz horn player Artie Barbato, and on drums Steve Goulding, late of Graham Parker & the Rumour - the first time he and Eric have recorded together since Eric's enduring hit "Whole Wide World" back in 1976.
He wrote the songs on the move, alone in grubby rooms, in dilapidated motels, and 'poolside' at rundown, out-of-season resort hotels, during gaps between tour dates. And in roadside cafes, parking lots and launderettes. "I was seeing stuff and writing it down, little vignettes. I felt like I was in a succession of Raymond Carver short stories."
Early on in his career, Eric said that all he wanted to leave behind was an indelible stain. During last year's gruelling tour schedule, Eric lost his mother and also his ex, the mother of his daughter. "You start to think, that's it I'm next. There's more time elapsed than there is time left to go. It's like the school summer holiday when I was a kid - at the start it stretched away endlessly but suddenly there was only a week left and then it was over. We're all going to die, it's inevitable and unavoidable. As this vague concept becomes more than just a disquieting reality, I get preoccupied with what is and what might have been."
The sun goes down and California slides majestically into the ocean. Eric grinds the hell out of a cheap electric guitar.
TRACK LISTING
1.Father To The Man
2.Strange Locomotion
3.The Half Of It
4.Dead End
5.Creepy People (In The Middle Of The Night)
6.Tiny House
7.Indelible Stain
8.California / Handyman